


Nine Inches, Yew

by ceywoozle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Catlock, M/M, Mention of Past Sexual Assault, Potterlock, but seriously i have no idea where this is going, i don't know yet, i'm making this up as i got along, mention of past rape, mention of past torture, so pretty much par for the course i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:46:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 44
Words: 56,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1661894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is an animagus. John's not quite sure how he feels about cats.</p><p>PLEASE READ TAGS FOR TRIGGER WARNINGS!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belle_of_the_fall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belle_of_the_fall/gifts).



> This is an open prompt from an anon that got sent to anotherwellkeptsecret on Tumblr. The link is here: http://anotherwellkeptsecret.tumblr.com/post/86250751239/i-dont-know-if-youre-a-fan-of-harry-potter-but

John looks around at the place, blue eyes slightly suspicious, shoulders wary. The cane is gripped in a white-knuckled hand and the arm shakes that is holding it. Too much pressure. Too much everything, pent up and filling up and taking over.

The flat is perfect.

He doesn't say that of course.

“Well, this could be very nice. Very nice indeed.”

“Yes. Yes, I think so,” Sherlock Holmes says. “My thoughts precisely.”

“Soon as we get all this rubbish cleaned out—”

“So I went straight ahead and moved in—”

They both stop. Stare at each other. John sees green eyes shifting to blue slant to grey hover over cooper. Black hair, a tangle of curls that he wants to brush straight and he's surprised by the thought, the unexpectedness of it. It seems like a thought from a different universe, a John Watson from days when he still thought these things were possible. He thinks of Mark, yellow hair and wide green eyes and lips soft and hard and fulfilling something in him that he hadn't even known needed fulfilling. He remembers losing his virginity in his parents' bedroom, in a fit of adolescent rage, his father passed out on the couch downstairs from too many pills, too many bottles. He thinks of the next day, that perfect yellow head bobbing towards him in a crowded hallway, surrounded by pretend-men in their rugby gear and the way those green eyes had slid pointedly away from him and the fist in his face later, the knee, the pointed toes of spiked shoes. John had left the team after that. He had never told anyone why.

Now he stares at eyes he can't pinpoint the colour of, slanted in a pale and alien face and he wonders at the impulse that leads him to actually consider this. _This could be dangerous,_ he thinks, because who is this man who knows his army career at a glance? A stalker, a freak, a puzzle. _Dangerous._

 

* * * * *

 

Later, not too much later, panting in the hallway, a grin on his face stretching muscles that haven't been used in weeks. Months. Years, if he doesn't count the animal grins that the bombs and the guns brought out. His life, if he thinks about before that, Harry walking out, dark glass being thrown and broken against a bruised and pitted wall, the incomplete idea of a shape that once made up a bottle, and later, years later, disappearing entirely. Has he ever smiled like this before?

He accepts. Of course he does. Did he ever have a choice?

 

* * * * *

 

It is not until he moves in the next day, the single canvas bag that carries his entire universe, every possession he can claim as his own, that the strange man, this Sherlock Holmes—a name he doesn't think he'll ever get used to saying though he practised all night, _Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock,_ until his tongue had stumbled and his ears no longer knew what they were hearing, his body still ringing with the feeling of a gunshot reverberating through his bones—looks up from the newspaper he's flipping through with far more activity than John has ever seen anyone read a newspaper before, and says “Allergies?”

“Sorry?” John says, dropping his bag beside the door. He sees the flicker of a blue gaze—yes, the eyes are blue right now, something light, the colour of the sky right after the sun has gone down when half is still in the afternoon and the other half is evening—settle on the sagging canvas at his feet and John sees the eyes briefly narrowing. John can almost _hear_ him thinking, reaching conclusions, telling stories in his own head and he wishes Sherlock Holmes would speak them aloud, wishes he could hear the syllables of scattered thought connecting, building sentences from fragments of colour and shape and texture, finding reason in the deep well of feeling that far too long ago had become too much for John and for months now had sat stagnant with a solid wooden cover chained down over top it. John wants to see himself through the eyes of this extraordinary man. He hasn't been looked at like this before, not ever. He feels extraordinary himself under that microscopic gaze and he doesn't understand why.

And then those eyes move away and John is released, some bright light sliding onwards and leaving him behind. He thinks of punctured glass, a bullet leaving his gun, Chinese food and laughter.

 “I asked if you had allergies,” Sherlock says. “I don't think you do, but it's probably good to make sure.”

“Oh. Um. No. No allergies.”

“Good. We have a cat.”

John frowns, presses his eyes shut for a second. “Sorry?” he says.

Sherlock looks at him. There is nothing calculated in it this time. It is a look that says _don't be an idiot, John,_ and John has a feeling this a look he will see often.

“A cat,” Sherlock Holmes says. “Small. Black. Sheds a lot. Hence, allergies.”

“You didn't say anything about a cat.”

John knows this probably isn't a big deal but he's never had a pet, never wanted one. He thinks of the gun tucked into the back of his trousers. He thinks of jumping across rooftops and the number he texted last night, the number of a serial killer. He thinks of Sherlock, a building away, a pill lifted to his lips.

“A cat.”

Sherlock just looks at him.

“Are you sure that's a good idea?”

He can practically see Sherlock's hackles rising.

“What's wrong with cats?”

“Nothing! Nothing. Just...a bit chancy. The whole...running after serial killers. Detecting. Thing.”

Sherlock seems to accept this, turning back to the newspaper in his hands, his back straight and his eyes flashing grey on the page. “It's fine,” he says and John knows that the conversation is over.

He looks around the flat, the sitting room larger than he's ever had, the kitchen cluttered with test tubes and flasks and...is that a cauldron? He thinks of a cat, leaving hair on the cushions and vomiting on the carpet. He thinks of paws on the counter top and glasses being knocked over to shatter on the floor.

“John.”

He looks over. Sherlock is watching him and John knows that there is nothing about his thoughts that are secret from this man.

“It's fine,” Sherlock says, his voice firm but a thread of amused assurance in his tone. “He's very well behaved.”

John raises a sceptical brow. Surely that's a contradiction of terms.

“You won't even have to scoop the litter box.”

“Oh?”

“He uses the toilet.”

“Oh.”

He's not sure how he feels about that.


	2. Two

John is not pleased. Sherlock can tell that from a glance. He knows John is displeased. Why? The cat? He can feel resentment burning. He'll show him.

Sherlock doesn't change that day. He can feel it itching under his skin. He loves the change, the morph, the knowledge that this is him. He thinks of years spent waving wands, the glares of McGonagall telling him _You're doing it wrong, Holmes!_ and the infuriated stubbornness, the burning humiliation because Sherlock was never wrong. He'd show her that Sherlock Holmes didn't get things wrong. He watched Victor Trevor casting his perfect spells, incanting and waving and sprouting owls from the ends of feathers while his own shivered limply on the desk before him, a feather with two round eyes that had stared imploringly till Professor McGonagall had put the poor thing out of its misery with an impatient wave of her wand.

He remembers Victor's smug smirk and the way he had bragged about it later, even as he fondled him, bringing him to come with a few chosen words of how much _better_ he was than Sherlock. And Sherlock, humiliated all over again, aware of the mess in his pants because Victor hadn't let him take them off, was horrified at the tears on his face as he swore to himself he'd never talk to Victor again.

It was never that easy, of course. Victor was Victor, after all. He came looking and Sherlock had never been good at making himself unseen, at enchantments, at disguises. He hated Victor's laugh as with a wave of his wand he would strip away Sherlock's spell like tossing water to strip away mud.

Sherlock had learnt, though. Oh yes, he had learnt.

He had gotten very good at stealing, at sneaking around. He had become an expert at being where he wasn't supposed to be. As for the rest...his parents had enough money to buy him whichever books he asked for, and being Muggles they didn't even question it. It was all a mystery to them and they handed over the Galleons with a proud sort of awe that had always irritated Mycroft. (Mugcroft, Sherlock started calling him that first summer. It had been glorious.)

It had taken _years._ The first time he dared to try The Spell on himself, after years of preparation, of hesitation, had been the day of Voldemort's return. Official return, anyway. It had been obvious for ages, of course, but Sherlock hadn't cared enough. After Hogwarts he had retreated from that world, putting his wand away because wands were a waste of time. He studied potions, and he learnt how to do magic wandless. It was easy, really, when one understood the principle. The wizarding world was idiotic in that way, entirely obsessed with itself, ignorant of anything that couldn't be accomplished with a wave of an extraneous and utterly unnecessary stick of enchanted wood. Ridiculous. The day he had graduated he had snapped his wand in two, the unicorn hair glinting silver between the two halves. (He had kept the hair, of course.)

That first transformation had been....nerve wracking. He had heard stories about wizards who had done it wrong and for a brief moment he had found himself wishing he hadn't snapped his wand after all, not because it made a difference, but because there was something reassuring about the weight of it in his hand, the slim cool line of ebony between his fingers. He did not believe in any gods, but at that moment he had sworn to any deity who happened to be listening that if he made it through this without permanent damage he would go to Ollivander's the next day and buy a new wand.

And that moment when the world had shifted and he had felt his entire self change...it had been some kind of revelation, a weightless, wonderful thing when the body that had been his had fallen away and changed and with it the whole world had changed as well. He was aware of being closer to the ground, of muscles that he'd never had to use before suddenly becoming vital, utterly aware of their flex and drag. He felt light. He felt dangerous. He felt perfect. He had prowled London that night, vanishing over rooftops and down alleys and it was all so _easy._ He didn't even have to try. He had caught a pickpocket, stopped a would-be rapist, interrupted two separate house breakers, and it had all been so _effortless._

He didn't have anyone he spoke to from the wizarding world anymore but he still had reports of Victor, his name coming up in the The Daily Prophet more often than it had any right to. Improper Use of Magic department, apparently, some senior official. He would pop up, usually somewhere in the front, second page or something like that—a full colour photograph, winking charmingly, his dark hair still dark—for a two paragraph story about enchanted cars over Epping or that one time with the runaway broomsticks when a shipment had been accidentally switched with a Muggle transport.

It was almost too perfect.

The day after Sherlock's first transformation he had gone straight to the Ministry of Magic and when the witch at security had asked him for his wand to register he had given her a superior glare and informed her that he hadn't needed a wand for years.

Victor, when he arrived to escort Sherlock to his office, had given him a grin that hadn't quite reached his eyes. And in his office, filling out the necessary paperwork, Victor hadn't quite believed it and Sherlock had been forced to change right there while Victor's grin had slowly melted away.

“So,” he had said when Sherlock had changed back. “Still trying to hide after all these years.”

Sherlock still hated him.

He had made one more stop before heading back to his flat that day.

Ollivander had been surprised to see him but he hadn't asked what had happened to his old wand and Sherlock didn't volunteer any information. The wand-maker looked aged and too lean and Sherlock vaguely remembered hearing his name listed as among those vanished during the years that Voldemort had held power. Ages ago. Surely the man was over it by now.

The new wand felt familiar in his grip, immediately comfortable. That was the trick of them, of course. It was a shorter than his last one, only nine inches long and made of polished yew, the warm tinge of the wood a marked contrast to the ebony of his old wand. It's heart was a hair from a thestral, which would have puzzled Sherlock had he cared more. But he didn't plan on using this wand. He bought it because he had promised and because there was something comforting about the grip of the smooth cylinder of wood in his hand and besides, the yew was...different. Good.

When he had arrived back at the flat he had looked around at the shabbiness of the place, the dubious neighbourhood, the cheap lock, and he'd reinforced the entire room with a broad sweep of his hand. Then after a moment he had taken his new wand out and done it again.

Perfect.

Then putting the narrow length of wood back in its box, he had transformed and spent an hour staring at himself in the cracked bathroom mirror. He was small, even for a what he was. Lithe and lean with a narrow pointed face. He flexed his claws and stared at the white sheathes in strong contrast against the soft black coat, long and slightly curled. He stared, mesmerised by his own eyes, round and yellow, the pupils slit against the electric light. He spent another fifteen minutes watching his ears rotate like satellites on his head and felt the shifting volume of voices and noise buzzing through his skull at every new angle. He could hear _everything._ The electricity humming along the wires, the scuttle of mice behind the battered drywall, the snores of the alcoholic two doors away. It was all at once too much and not enough. He spent forty minutes watching his own tail, feeling it shift with him, adjust to every balance. He leapt to the floor and felt it lever up behind him and the play of muscles that he'd never been aware of, shoulders flexing with innate strength. So light he had felt like he could fly.

But there was a trap in this, too, because suddenly everything became so _easy._ He had rarely used magic when chasing criminals, not even when Donovan had caught him performing a minor spell one day, summoning a cup of coffee from the other side of a desk. Her sister was a witch, she knew the signs, and Sherlock was familiar enough with Mycroft's own reactions to him that he knew the signs of jealousy burgeoning in the outrage on her face when he refused to use his magic to take down a serial arsonist. Why should he? He would catch them. It was a matter of hours. No one's life was at stake. What did it matter how it was accomplished as long as the man was in custody before the end of the day. It was already too easy as it was, no more than a four. They were lucky he had shown up at all.

But now, with this new body, an entire world opened up that hadn't existed before. He found crimes every night, skulking in places he could never have passed unnoticed before. It became routine. It almost became boring.

And then one day the eviction happened, because he was getting careless, he was getting bored. He came home to find the notice pasted on the chipped paint of his door. _“It has come to our attention that you are harbouring an animal and are in breach of your rental agreement.”_ He had two weeks.

He had avoided this for months. Because he didn't need anyone in his life. He had run far away from the benevolent influence of his parents, filled with disappointment at the future of their so-bright wizard son, so it felt counter-intuitive now to dial that number on the mobile that Mycroft paid for. And when he heard that voice on the other end he couldn't help the sigh that escaped him.

_“Yes, hello?”_

“Hello, Mrs Hudson. It's Sherlock.”

 

* * * * *

 

Two weeks after that phone call he stands in the flat above Mrs Hudson's and watches Doctor John Watson trying to weigh his choices and coming to the conclusion that he has none. Excellent.

For the first time in years, Sherlock thinks of the wand tucked now under the head end of his mattress. A little bit shorter than he's used to, a little bit lighter, it's core much darker. And something slots into place. Something comfortable. Something good.

He waits until the next day, when the doctor's single canvas sack of belongings has already landed on the floor between them, to mention the cat.

 


	3. Three

John almost forgets about the cat when he finally sees his bedroom. It's large and airy, encompassing the entire open area of the attic floor. It is far larger than necessary and he feels lost and just a bit too small in this vast space. There is a large bed already made up with several thick blankets piled on the end, with a wardrobe that he will never fill and a chest of drawers that almost seem to be laughing at him and the single canvas bag slung over his shoulder. There is a small table that has been commissioned for use as a bedside table and a large plank desk sitting under the wide set of windows at the front of the house. The curtains are pulled aside and the glazed panes let in the late afternoon light, setting a glow across the room that highlights the dust motes and the maze of scratches on the wooden floor. A worn and faded rug covers the floorboards between the bed and an armchair with yet another battered looking side table near at hand. There is a small door, on the end of the room opposite the window, that is little more than a closet with a toilet and a small sink.

The whole thing is bright and cozy and warm and almost unbearably domestic.

He doesn't know what he's done to deserve this place, what it was he finally managed to do right. He's waiting for someone to knock on the door behind him, someone to tell him it was all a mistake. Maybe Mrs Hudson will say his cheque didn't clear. Maybe Sherlock will realise he doesn't really want to live with a half-crazy army doctor who has lost all useful skills, gone in the flash of a bullet, a piece of metal tearing nerves and muscles to pieces that will never fully heal. John can't remember having a place like this ever before. Has no idea what he's going to do with it all. He wants to turn around walk out before someone tells him there's been some kind of error, this isn't his room after all, but he also wants to throw himself down on the floor, dig fingernails into worn floorboards, cling to it and never let go.

So he compromises. He goes to sit on the bed.

The frame is old and heavy in style, a wooden construct that would look out of place in a smaller space than this one. The mattress is a touch too soft and John can feel himself sinking into it, more than he's used to at least with his body still attuned to the firm plastic-coated foam of the hospital bed and then the plank-like single wire-framed monstrosity that he had endured at the bedsit. This is luxury. This is extraordinary luxury. He falls backwards into the sheets and stares at the ceiling as his body and his mind both try to adjust to this new place to rest.

He's not even surprised when there's a knock on the door and he pulls himself upwards, his shoulder giving a twinge that he's almost gotten used to by now as Sherlock's head pushes in through the gap.

They stare at each other, both of them silent. John is waiting for the words, Sherlock telling him that he's found someone else, that he's considered another application, someone more reliable, with more money, less baggage. He thinks of his finger on his trigger last night, a man falling down dead. He thinks of laughing in the hallway, panting and giggling, grinning because for the first time he is aware of some empty thing inside him that while it's not entirely filled, it is at least marked and delineated in a way it never has been before. John sees it and knows for the first time that something can be done to fix it. If not fill it, then at least patch it over so that it doesn't grow larger and that the danger of him falling into it becomes less.

He thinks of these things and for the first time since Afghanistan he finds himself praying. _Please, God, let me stay._

“You haven't unpacked,” Sherlock says, his eyes narrowed and dark.

“Erm. No. I haven't. That is, not yet.”

Another silence. They look at each other. John remembers last night's camaraderie. It's gone, an odd tension between them replacing it. _This is it,_ he thinks. He is waiting for this to end. He almost _wants_ it to end. It doesn't seem natural, somehow, that this windfall should have fallen right at his feet.

Sherlock looks suddenly uncertain. “Do you...” he hesitates, his vowels drawn out. He coughs. “That is, do you need help? Unpacking. That is.”

They both stare at the single bag on the floor between them.

“No,” John says. “I think I'm alright.”

“Right. Yes, of course.”

“You're sure this is okay?” John says. “Me staying?”

Sherlock looks at him and John almost smiles.

_Don't be an idiot, John._

“Right,” John says. “Obviously. Ta.”

Another silence. John wonders how on earth this had gotten _so awkward._ Last night was easy, so easy, giggling across from each other, shovelling far too much Chinese food into their mouths. The staggered walk home again, Sherlock going in one direction, John in another, with the understanding of _tomorrow._ John, almost drunk with giddiness and the slow drain of adrenaline leaving his system, had barely remembered the trip home, walking because he couldn't afford a cab.

What was it that had changed? Last night had been surreal, a dream. Something that happened in a different world, and now suddenly they are sitting in stark daylight and the memory of the trigger against his finger is just that—a memory.

“So, I'm off then,” Sherlock says, and John frowns, nods.

“Alright.” He wants to ask. Another case? Doesn't he want John to come? Did John do something wrong? Is Sherlock looking back at the night before and picking out all the things that could so easily have turned disastrous? Like how long it had taken for John to realise what was happening. The way he had chosen the wrong building, had almost been too late. The way he had hesitated before jumping across that gap between buildings. The way he hadn't always managed to keep up. How he had almost accused Sherlock of being the murderer, listening to that sergeant, almost not come at all. Is Sherlock thinking of all these things? Realising what a terrible idea this is?

“Just some errands. Paperwork. For Lestrade. A few hours only.”

“Oh, right. Okay. I'll just...unpack.”

Another silence.

“I may got to the lab after, too,” Sherlock says. “Molly texted. A severed head.”

John tries to parse that. Isn't sure he wants to.

“Right,” he says. Sherlock is staring at him.

“Depends, though,” says the detective.

“Oh? On what?”

Sherlock looks puzzled. “Things,” he says, and it looks like he's searching for more words, but he just grimaces, grey eyes sliding away from John's.

And without another word he disappears and John listens to his feet retreating in a staccato tap down the stairs, past the first floor landing and all the way to where the sound of the front door rises faintly to his ears, opening and then slamming firmly shut.

John almost heaves a sigh of relief. Because he is here. Because he is alone. And because he can feel the edges of that hollow inside him and it's shored up, the edges no longer in danger of collapse, and soon, soon, if he's lucky, he can start trying to see if it can be filled.

He unpacks, slowly. He puts his toiletries in the tiny bathroom, distributes his clothes in the chest of drawers. His coat and his jacket he hangs in the wardrobe and at the bottom he places his spare pair of shoes, tattered and worn but all he has. They seem lost in the cavernous space and he shuts the doors quickly before he can think about it too much. His gun finds a home under the bed, on the side farthest from the door and tucked behind the heavy wooden leg closest to the wall. He will have to rig something up, a small ledge he can keep it on, tucked beneath the apron on the bed, along with his ammunition. But for now it will have to do. His laptop he tucks under his arm, along with his shampoo and his soap and the single towel he owns, and looking around his room, identical to how it looked before he had come, he goes downstairs to take a shower.

The bathroom has a tub, which he immediately appreciates. He considers taking a bath but the door separating him from the bedroom is made of translucent glass and he knows he's being silly. Sherlock isn't here and besides, he was in the army. He's not modest, certainly isn't shy. But it's different somehow, different from the company of familiar soldiers.

 _Why?_ his treacherous mind demands, and he thinks of a lean frame and changeable eyes in a pale alien face and black curls he had wanted to touch and he knows why. He thinks of his scars, of a faded tattoo, of the waste that sickness and bed rest had produced, muscles wasted and weak under skin only starting to regain the elasticity of health. He hates himself for this vanity, for this shameful desire that he can feel stirring at the edges when he thinks of long-fingered hands and sharp white teeth and spotlight eyes, but he can't deny it's existence either.

So he showers, scrubbing himself thoroughly with his cheap drug store soap and shampoo. When he's done, he dries himself quickly, stepping out of the tub and briskly rubbing the towel through hair that is starting to grow out. He didn't bring a change of clothes down with him and he considers putting his old clothes back on but the thought makes him grimace. The clothes feel like they come from a different world, a past life. A life before Baker Street. It feels like a step backwards to put them back on without washing them first, removing forever the taint of life before Sherlock Holmes. So he wraps the towel around his waist instead.

He doesn't hear anything outside the door so he carefully cracks it open, peering with wary eyes into the hall. He almost jumps out of his skin.

He's being watched.

Round yellow eyes against coal black fur, a soft sheen to the oddly curly coat. The cat's long tail brushes gently against the carpet in the hall, the hush of fur on fabric almost loud in the silence of the flat.

“Oh, hello,” John says. “I almost forgot about you.”

The cat gives him a disdainful glare.

“Nice to meet you too,” John mumbles, and after a quick glance around he steps out of the bathroom, his old clothes over one arm, his other hand clutching the thin towel at his waist.

The cat doesn't move so he steps over it and it watches him with round judgemental eyes as the towels flaps against its ears. The cat hisses quietly but John ignores it, jogging through the kitchen and dodging into the hallway and up the stairs.

He dresses quickly, draping his towel over the top of the door to dry and pulling on pants and a pair of comfortably worn jeans and his favourite button up over a tshirt. He considers a jumper but it's warm enough to do without and he has no plans to leave the flat. He sits on the bed— _his_ bed—to pull on his socks and becomes aware of the cat, sitting in the doorway now as if it just materialised from nowhere. John knows that's ridiculous, but the staring is becoming eerie.

“What do you want?” he demands, pulling the socks past his heels and glaring suspiciously at the small animal.

Thankfully, it doesn't actually answer him.

He steps past it again, wandering downstairs, aware now of the small black shadow pattering at his heels. He goes to the kitchen, starts opening cupboards, sifting through the maze of science equipment—seriously, a cauldron?—and tightly sealed bottles that he doesn't dare open to find the tea, kettle, a cup. He puts on the water and opens the refrigerator. It's empty, except for a single jug of milk and a tray of...is that fingers? No. Surely not.

He looks closer.

Definitely fingers.

Index fingers, he thinks. Two dozen, neatly lined up in three rows of eight.

He stands there, wondering what to do. The man is clearly mad. But John's already put all his things away and given Mrs Hudson his cheque and he thinks of the room that he'd never be able to afford otherwise and he thinks of last night and laughing against the wall and Chinese food and he finds himself pulling out the milk with a shrug. The refrigerator door rattles as it swings shut.

 


	4. Four

Sherlock sits in the door to the kitchen and watches as John stares into the refrigerator, his face lit by the white bulb, casting shadows against his face—highlighting every imperfection, every scar.

He is wondering what's taking so long. The good doctor is looking for the milk, presumably. Surely he can see it. It's not as if Sherlock's had time to stock up on perishables yet, just the milk for tea and the fing—

_Oh._

Right. Those. He watches John Watson, waiting for the outburst, the inevitable grimace of disgust. And he begins to see it, the edges of it along with disbelief creeping up onto that imperfect face. But it's gone before it has time to fully form and then John is pulling the milk jug out of the fridge and shutting the door and going to where the kettle roils on the counter.

Sherlock is still staring, still waiting. But when the kettle boils and John pours the water, leaning on the counter and staring around him at the debris littering every surface while the tea steeps and steams before him, Sherlock begins to slowly realise that that was it. That was the only reaction he was getting. If his face allowed it he would grin.

Instead he can feel the vibrations begin in his chest and he starts to purr.

John's gaze settles on him and Sherlock sees that blue eye narrow, the skin wrinkling and folding, telling a story more precise than words. John Watson is disturbingly easy to read.

“What are you purring about? Are you hungry?”

Sherlock stops purring. _Don't be an idiot, John._

But John's already turned his back, sifting through debris and opening cupboards and Sherlock wonders what he's looking for.

“Where's your food, girl?”

_Girl?_

John checks every cupboard and then stands beside the stove looking puzzled. He's glancing around the kitchen, eyes fixed on the floors and Sherlock wonders what he's looking for now before John walks towards the sitting room, looking at the floors and in the corners, clearly searching for something. Sherlock follows him, wondering what he's doing. Surely he doesn't think there would be catfood stashed in the corners of the sitting room. Is he looking for mice or something? Is he that much of an imbecile?

It takes two and half minutes before John is standing in the centre of the room again and looking puzzled. He looks at Sherlock, who is sitting at the opening to the kitchen and watching him with an interested look on his face.

“Where're your bowls, love?” he asks, and Sherlock is suddenly grateful that cats can't blush. “How do you not even have a bowls of water? Is it in the bedroom maybe?” he murmurs it, more to himself than to Sherlock, and a second later he is stepping past Sherlock and going back down the hall to where the bathroom and the bedroom are situated.

Sherlock waits where he is, watching as John pokes a cautious head in through the door at the end of the short corridor, not quite entering, just checking the corners, the edges of the floor. He's back in the kitchen a few seconds later, still uncertain, and Sherlock begins to appreciate that expression on John's expressive face, the way his forehead nuzzles downwards around his eyes, the purse of his lips.

Dark blue eyes eyes settle once more on Sherlock, still watching him from the divide of the two rooms, and the puzzled look turns into an outright frown.

“Your human's a bit strange. What's your name, anyway?” He approaches and Sherlock watches him, unmoving, as he crouches beside him and offers a hand to be sniffed.

Sherlock does so, curious and amused. He's enjoying this.

He inhales the scent of the fingers before him, smelling tea and sugar, the cheap soap John uses, the slight animal reek of wool and the lingering scent of laundry soap, and under it, the important bits, he smells eccrine sweat, sebum, and pheromones. It is purely John, this individual scent, and Sherlock has it in his nose now and he secretes it away in his mind palace, remembering it for later, and it's the first thing that he places in the room called _John._

 


	5. Five

It's slight unnerving, this cat. John's never had a pet before and he wonders if it's just the sensation of something watching him when he's not used to being watched. He stares, uncertain, as it sniffs his hand, a surprisingly intense action that makes John feel like he's being remembered, memorised, and he's aware of an odd warmth, something almost close to happiness, and he has to wonder at himself, at the fact that's he so grateful to hold anything's attention that he's actually getting sentimental over a cat.

_Get a hold of yourself, Watson._

He frowns slightly, because he's getting stiff, crouching like this, his left leg starting to cramp. He's going to get up, just as soon as the cat is finished sniffing his fingers.

Except that's when it leans forward slightly, nudging it's head against his hand, and John flexes his fingers, opening his palm and the silky waves on the top of its head are suddenly against his hand.

He's worried about hurting it, about doing this wrong. He's never had a cat before, but the cat seems determined to show him, stropping itself along his palm, nuzzling his fingers, and John lets himself be guided. He gives up on crouching and folds his legs onto the floor in front of him, his hand running over the crinkled fur, the tight curls around its chest and belly. His drags his fingers through the tangled skeins and wonders if Sherlock has a brush. The cat is purring, rumbling vibrations that he can feel in his hand.

“Bit of a sweetheart, aren't you, love?” John murmurs, aware that his voice is pitched at least three octaves higher than normal. The cat purrs louder and John realises that he's smiling. Not the outright grin, the adrenaline driven joy he had felt last night with Sherlock, but something gentler, infinitely quieter.

Something warns him even before he hears the creak on the stairs and he is on his feet in a heartbeat, almost unconscious of having moved at all. He is reaching for the gun at his back even before he remembers he left it upstairs and that he doesn't need it anyway. He's in a flat in central London, there is no one coming to get him. He looks down at the cat, aware of his heart humming a steady vibrato against his ribs and his nostrils flare as he inhales shallow breaths that don't quite fill his lungs. The cat is staring back, its hackles up, ears back, entire body tensed and ready to move. It's cuing from him.

“Woo hoo!”

The landlady. Obviously. Who else would it be?

Mrs Hudson has already crossed the threshold, bustling into the kitchen with the well-intentioned busyness of helpful old ladies everywhere. “Brought you some tea,” she says. “Thought you might be wanting something I wasn't sure if you'd had a chance to go to the shops yet.”

John wants to protest, wants to lash out because his heart is still ratcheting in his chest and his lungs are only starting to fill again, but he sees the teapot and the plate of sandwiches and he clamps his lips shut. His own cup of tea sits neglected on the counter, no longer steaming, the string from the bag still hanging limply over its edge.

“Ta. That's very nice,” he says.

The look she gives him is bordering on stern. “Just this once, I'm not your housekeeper, dear.”

“Right, of course. Thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

She smiles at him beatifically and turns to go.

“Sorry,” he says. “Not to keep you, but I was wondering if you had any cat food. Just I can't find any.”

She pauses, turning to him with a frown, her nose wrinkled in delicate distaste. “Cat food? Oh you're not going to feed any strays are you?”

“N-no. No, it's for Sherlock's cat.”

She raises an incredulous eyebrow. “A cat? Sherlock?” She gives a trilling cackle. “Sherlock doesn't have a cat, dear. I'm sure he was only teasing.”

“Why would he tease about a cat—” he glances down to where the cat was arched at his feet, but it's gone and he frowns. Is he going mad? But no, Sherlock said it himself. Didn't he? “No, nevermind, it's okay. I must have misheard him. Thanks for the tea, Mrs Hudson.”

“Of course. You just rest that leg now.”

“My leg. Right. Ta.”

He listens to her retreat, the sound of her shoes tapping against the steps, her disjointed humming drifting away until the sound of the apartment door downstairs cuts it suddenly off. He goes to the tea tray, inspects the sandwiches and realises he's ravenous. But he is barely permitted a bite before he hears the front door slam shut and the rapid sound of footsteps on the stairs and he hasn't even swallowed before Sherlock is there, black coat sweeping behind him, cheeks flushed and out of breath.

John swallows, looks concerned. “Alright?” he asks, thinking of serial killer cabbies and someone named Moriarty.

Sherlock stares at him, wide-eyed and there's something odd about that look, something strangely expectant. But in another second it flickers away, green eyes settling on the teapot and the sandwiches.

“I'm starving,” Sherlock says, and he swoops down on the tea tray, shoves a sandwich in his mouth with one hand while the other one rattles the spout of the teapot against the bone china cup.

“Right, speaking of starving,” John says, “Where do you keep the cat food? The cat was hanging around. I think she was hungry.”

The look Sherlock gives him is pure disdain. _“He.”_

“Oh. Sorry. Well, _he_ was hungry then.”

Sherlock sniffs, chewing ostentatiously as he puts the teapot back on the tray and picks the cup up with careful fingers. “I have to buy some. I ran out.”

“Right. Are there bowls? You know, for feeding her—ah, him.”

Sherlock glares at him, but the power of it is lost in the embarrassed flush that ascends his collar and lays waste to the pale expanse of his face. “I...they got lost. In the packing.”

John stares at him, no idea what to say. He thinks of his earlier concerns, the recklessness of Sherlock's lifestyle, the inevitable question of _what if,_ and now it turns out the landlady doesn't even know about the animal and Sherlock hasn't fed it in days.

“Right,” John says. He turns away, sees his coat slung over the back of the faded red armchair where he had left it earlier and he drags it on, checks it for his wallet, his phone. His shoes are kicked haphazardly by the sitting room door and he pulls them on, tying them in a perfunctory knot. He's aware of Sherlock silent in the kitchen and he's waiting for him to ask. It's not until he's put a foot down on the top step, though, that the detective actually speaks.

“Where are you going?” the petulant baritone demands, and John doesn't even turn around when he answers.

“The pet shop,” he says, and limps down the stairs.

 


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited: Thank you to Megabat and sammywol for the britpicking for this chapter!

It's possible Sherlock hadn't thought this through.

He is standing in the divide between the sitting room and the kitchen watching John unpack the plastic shopping bags. He's been gone for ages, far long than would justify a quick jaunt to the shops for a sack of generic brand food, and Sherlock feels a slight dip in the pit of his stomach as he watches the contents unfurling from the bags on the table.

Two bowls emerge, painted ceramic with little fish bones swimming along the sides. After that, a crinkling bag of dry food in a brand that Sherlock doesn't recognise, and quickly following it, a variety of tins, different flavours and names. He spots the word _mackerel_ on one and shudders.

He walks forward, inspecting the tins, looking at the bag of dry food. He sees the words _local_ and _holistic_ in the descriptors and he sees the price stickers on the tops of the tins and winces.

John is in the process of pulling a cylindrical scratching post with a bunch of feathers attached to a spring at the top from a larger bag, but he sees Sherlock's flinch out of the corner of his eye and he turns to him with a hard stare, daring him to speak.

“I don't know this brand,” Sherlock says carefully.

John's eyes narrow and he presses his lips in a tight line before answering. “Yeah, well, maybe you should do some research.”

He manages to wrestle the scratching post out of the bag and sets it on the table. Sherlock watches with something close to guilt as John starts on the next bag.

A succession of catnip filled cushions and a deep round bed that Sherlock almost wishes came in a larger size make their appearance. He imagines curling up in it and almost unconsciously he reaches out and fingers the fleece lining.

John presses it into his hand. “Go put this somewhere,” he says.

Sherlock looks at him. “Where?”

John gives him a glance laden with sarcastic bemusement. “He's your cat. Where does he like to lie?”

Sherlock stares at the bed in his hand for a moment. He feels like an idiot.

“Here, take this, too. Put it in the sitting room.” John pushes the scratching post towards him.

Sherlock continues to stare. This is possibly the strangest moment of his life.

“Er. John. There's something I should possibly...erm...probably tell you about...about the cat.”

The look John levels at him is filled with exasperation. “Please tell me you've at least named him. How long have you had him, anyway? Do you even know how to take care of one?”

Sherlock is offended. Of course he knows how to take care of a cat, far better than an ex-army doctor who is apparently looking to get cheated by every pet supply store in the city.

“I know exactly how to take care of a cat. And...and... _Billy,_ yes, _Billy_ does not require scratching posts and fleece beds and catnip. He's an animal, John.”

 _“Billy?_ You just made that up right now off the top of your head. And yes, I can see how well you know how to take care of a cat given that you didn't even have food for it. At least one of us is prepared.”

Sherlock scowls. “Prepared for what? The day the cat army rises to protest the sudden influx of mackerel? You are aware that the ancestor from which the domestic house cat is descended was a plains hunting animal and would never have been exposed to the correct environmental impetus that would have caused it to become a fisher.”

“Yes, thanks for that. Please put the bed somewhere.” He's not even looking at Sherlock anymore, opening yet another bag, this one from a bookstore and Sherlock watches as he starts emptying it. Two true crime novels, a Jack the Ripper conspiracy text, some sort of fantasy fiction, and lastly, an eight by eleven glossy book about cat care.

“Oh my God,” Sherlock says. He doesn't know what he's feeling. It could be amusement, it could be guilt. All he knows is that he simultaneously wants to laugh and tear his hair out and grab John by the shoulders and shake him but also tell him that he's kind of wonderful because Sherlock's fully aware of the state of the man's bank account and here he is emptying it in order to care for a cat that doesn't exist.

Well, doesn't _entirely_ exist, anyway.

“Look,” John says, grabbing the stack of books and holding them to his chest, his face turning slowly red. “Just...put the damn scratching post in the sitting room, okay?”

“I don't need a scratching post, John.”

“Tell that to the couch.”

Sherlock can feel himself redden. “That was only once!”

John sighs and presses his fingers to his temples. “Do what you want then. I'm going to read.”

“What, about _cats?”_

John glares at him, and snatches the last bag from the table, he turns on his heels and disappears into the hall. Sherlock can hear him almost fleeing up the stairs to his bedroom. Sherlock listens but doesn't hear the door shut and he's not sure why but he feels smug about that.

He stares at the collection of cat supplies on the table, at the scratching post with the feathers on top. They waft on the loose spring they're attached to and Sherlock gives them a lazy swipe with the palm of his hand. They bob madly about for a second before vibrating back to vertical, and he takes another swipe, watching them fling madly about.

Without believing that he's doing it, he picks up the scratching post and with the bed walks to the sitting room. He puts the scratching post beside the couch where the frayed line of sharp claws makes a jagged path down one arm rest, then takes the fleece bed and after a seconds thought he places it in the middle of the sitting room floor where he knows a bright patch of sunlight has a habit of lingering in the afternoon.

Might as well put on the show for John. Right?

 _Yes,_ he thinks, looking at the deep bed with its thick fleecy cushion, thinking of tomorrow afternoon when the sun comes in at a slant and lingers just right there, a good hour long window. _For John._

 


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red collar and bell, for skyglazingMaro.

John's stares at the cat breeds listed on the page, sleek, postured animals glaring discontentedly out at him from their glossy coloured photographs, and frowns. _A Selkirk Rex?_ No, the snout isn't quite the same. _A long-haired LaPerm?_ He hopes not just because of the ridiculousness of the name. And besides, the curls aren't quite right. Billy the Cat has more a gentle wave over his back and head, the fur long but sleek as opposed to the upright fluff that he sees in the picture, with tight curls along its belly and chest where it hasn't been brushed and the soft fur's started to tangle and matt.

He wonders where the cat's disappeared to. He hasn't seen it since the late morning when Mrs Hudson the landlady had come upstairs and chased it away, right alongside his own certainty and sanity. He wasn't imagining it, was he? No, he can't be. Sherlock said there was a cat. So he neglected to tell the landlady, that was all. Maybe she doesn't allow animals and that's why he didn't say anything. It's not very honest, perhaps, but it was a cat, how much harm could it do?

He frowns. _Billy._ He wonders how on earth the poor animal has survived this long. Does it hunt, perhaps? Do they have mice in the flat? He makes a mental note to see about treatment for worms and fleas. Will Billy need to be bathed?

He grabs his phone, starts punching in searches on the browser, fumbling with the touch screen and cursing the clumsiness of his fingers. He find a comprehensive list on the third page he visits and wishes he had pen and paper. He opens a second window on his phone and with laborious fingers types:

 

_pen_

_paper_

 

in the notepad option, then opens a second note and cursing all touch screens everywhere, types in:

 

_For Billy:_

_find vet_

_get blood work done_

_vaccines for an indoor cat?_

_is Billy an indoor cat? check with sherlock._

_flea treatment (topical? what is “spot on”? shampoo?)_

_worm treatment_

 

He stares at the list, wondering what else he needs to do. He had never realised how much care a house cat required and he mentally thanks the woman from the pet store who had pointed him in the right direction.

Curiously, he goes back to the browser and types  _curly-haired cat breeds_ into the search bar. He doesn't have a chance to select any of the results though before the faint sound of the front door slamming drifts up to his room, muffled by distance and his partially closed door. He listens closely for a moment and doesn't hear anything further and he wonders if Sherlock has gone and he considers going downstairs to get his laptop from where he had deposited it earlier on the coffee table in the sitting room.

He's about to get up and retrieve it when he sees the door to his room shift from the corner of his eye and immediately he is tense and ready, every muscle tightening, his hand seeking instinctively for a weapon. It's a reaction that he can't help even as he knows it's absurd, especially as he sees the soft pink nose that appears and hears the odd trill of a curious cat. Yellow eyes and upright ears follow a moment later, bright and alert and wondering.

“Hello there,” he says and doesn't notice he's smiling till he's crouched on the floor with his hand out. The cat stares at him from the doorway, and John wonders what it's waiting for.

“Come on, love,” he urges and hears the purr begin, though it still doesn't approach. “What's wrong?” he says, fully aware that he sounds like an utter twat, that he might not actually be alone in the flat, that Sherlock might be standing at the bottom of the stairs, smirking and sniggering.

But somehow that's not as important right now. Somehow it matters more that the cat come to him, that it trusts him. And because it's the only name the animal has, John says “Come on, Billy,” and the cat gives a satsified toss of its black head and comes trotting over, stropping itself along his hand.

John feels his lips quirk.  _Billy indeed._

He lets the cat rub itself along him for a bit, and when it starts to get insistent he lets his hand stray to where the tangles are on its belly.

“How do you feel about being brushed, love?” he asks and he feels the high pitched vibration all along his arm as Billy purrs against him.

“Alright, come on then.” 

He carefully picks the cat up and John is surprised at how willing it is, eagerly launching itself at John's neck, thrilled at this new place to rub. John lets it, grinning at the feeling of whiskers in his ear, velvet fur against the sensitive skin of his throat. The purr has escalated until John is worried something might break. Can that happen? What part of the cat is used to make it purr?

He sits on the edge of the bed, reaching for the plastic bag he had brought up. It swings in his hand, the last few objects weighing down the corner and smacking against his knee. Billy is in his lap, settled between his thighs with all four legs in the air and a look of bliss on his face. He is purring loud enough that it's turned into a high-pitched grinding noise.

He does what the woman at the pet store suggested, first stroking the tangled fur with his fingers, then after a minute replacing his hand with the smooth side of the brush. In his lap, Billy looks up, inspecting the brush with an insistent nose, and only when he settles back down again, extending himself so that his head hangs over the edge of the bed, does John turn the brush around and start threading its bristles through the knots.

He does it gently, a knot at a time, picking them apart with his fingers where they prove too stubborn. He is at it for at least twenty minutes, cooing gently, his voice high-pitched and soft and he hopes very much that Sherlock isn't home.

But part of him, the slightly bigger part, is engrossed in this task, in the softness of the fur, the satisfaction that comes every time a matt comes apart between his fingers. Billy is nearly comatose, utterly limp and relaxed on the bed, bracketed in the space between John's thighs. The heat of the small, lithe body is pressed against his leg and it's a comforting feeling, this entire other being who needs him, who wants him, who welcomes him. He is lulled by it, utterly disarmed. He wonders if all cats are like this. If he's been missing out on this his whole life.

There is a sizable ball of loose fur rolled up beside him on the bed by the time's he's managed to work out all the knots and Billy is almost asleep, almost unresponsive when he replaces the brush with his hand again, running his fingers through the fur, feeling the warm skin underneath. He could get used to this, John thinks.

He is about to lie down, stretch out beside that tiny body and close his eyes. He's tired, having had little sleep the night before, what with murderous cab drivers and wild chases through the streets, and a long, involved day hunting down pet supplies and books. It's almost ten o'clock now and he wonders where Sherlock could have gotten, if he should phone him. John had been exasperated, now he is worried.

He reaches for his phone and his hand brushes against the plastic bag and he remembers the last thing he had picked up for Billy. He pulls it out and it clinks slightly as he reaches over, slipping it around the cat's neck while it's still sprawled half-conscious between his legs, and it's only as he clicks the two ends together and the soft red fabric is secured does Billy open his eyes.

There is a brief second in which neither of them move, wide yellow eyes staring in outraged disbelief, legs still dangling undignified in the air, and then all at once Billy seems to realise what's just happened. With an abruptness that startles even John, the cat is leaping up, legs scrambling for purchase and teeth bared in a ferocious hiss and it rockets out of the room. 

John stares at the empty door, trying not to laugh as he listens to the tiny bell ringing all the way down the stairs.

 


	8. Eight

The indignity, the outrage. Sherlock doesn't even wait until he's all the way downstairs before transforming, scrambling with suddenly human fingers at his neck. But it's no good. The same laws of transference that deal with his clothing and his phone have dealt with the collar in a similar manner. He swears he can still hear that bloody bell tinkling maddeningly under his right ear.

He stumbles the last few steps and goes immediately for his violin. By the time he has it raised to his shoulder, the bow out and the first shrill note breaking discordantly into the flat, John is coming downstairs.

Sherlock plays louder, not wanting to talk, not even wanting to look at him. He had been buzzing, the warmth of his belly still bleeding through into this form, and he feels utterly betrayed at the pleasure of his own body, the lethargy that had allowed such a trespass to happen.

 _A collar,_ he rages in his mind. _With a bell._

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees John stop in the doorway, half in the hall, and looking puzzled as he watches the war occurring at the window between the instrument and the bow. John doesn't say anything, though, simply standing there while Sherlock aggressively ignores him, pouring every ounce of outraged dignity into the unfortunate instrument in his hands.

In his own head, the imaginary ding of the tiny bell accompanies his every shift and movement and he wants nothing more to throw himself on the sofa and sulk, he wants to tear his hair out and curl into a ball and kick and scream except that John is moving away, he's leaving, walking back into the hall and the bow on the strings falters and screeches entirely unplanned.

And then more movement, and he sees John reappearing in the kitchen, filling the kettle, unearthing the tea, and Sherlock doesn't even realise how much his playing has softened when he sees John plucking not one but two mugs from the cupboard beside the sink.

By the time the water has boiled, the tea steeped, the sugar and the milk added, and John has deposited the second cup on the table beside Sherlock before taking his own tea and settling into the worn red chair by the fire place, the one that Sherlock never sits in, Sherlock is deep in the softer strains of Sibelius' Karelia Suite without having noticed at all.

 

 * * * * *

 

 

It is not until two hours later, far past the time when John should have gone to bed, his eyes tired and heavy as he sips at his third cup of tea, his fingers rubbing at the corner of the book he is trying to read, his lids and his chin both drooping towards his chest, that Sherlock realises that he has added a second thing to the room in his mind palace called _John._

_Tea with milk, no sugar._

 


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg guys john's character is such a mess. i probably should have planned this story a bit better. *begs all the forgiveness for crappy johns*

John finds a vet the next day, a clinic five blocks away that caters mainly to cats and dogs. He asks about prices and when the receptionist hands him a brochure listing general costs, John has to stop and breathe for a moment. He knows how much these things cost, of course, the thousand expenses in running a clinic. But he's used to the NHS, to never having to deal with these costs on a patient basis, and he stands in front of the high counter while the receptionist looks on with a friendly, bland smile and runs the numbers from his latest bank statement through his head.

John thanks the receptionist (his name is Lawrence and he's tall and lean, black and utterly gorgeous, glossy hair in twisted braids that are pulled back in a pony tail, leaving several strands dancing around his face, partially obscuring the smile he gives) as he puts the brochure in his jacket.

He actually considers asking the man out but he recognises the impulse for what it is, pure habit. And besides, he's thinking of his bank account, of Billy at home who may actually have to be brought here, of Sherlock playing furious violin, his rage soaking through the ceiling and the floor, climbing up the stairs and pitching about the room until John had gone down, offering the only palliative he had at his disposal: tea. He had listened, sipping cup after cup, while the rage-filled shriek had slowly blended into something breathless and light, something he couldn't name but could feel in the shadows creeping up around the brightness of the major notes, setting them off and giving them depth. But most of all he thinks of that first failed attempt and put down at Angelo's and the horrible awkwardness that had ensued, that would further ensue if he showed up one day with a man. There are things you can't reveal to the flatmate who sees everything, the flatmate who has probably done more to save your life then a dozen sessions of therapy and all the anti-depressants in the world. John will not lose this. John can't lose this.

So he keeps walking and when he gets back to the flat, Sherlock is gone, and he feels a stab of disappointment that he quickly muffles in a coo to Billy, who is curled up in the fleece bed, his limbs invisible, a perfect black circle against the white.

“Hello, dove,” he murmurs, kneeling awkwardly on the floor beside the bed. Billy is purring before he's even touched him, the little body vibrating under his touch. He runs his hands through that silken fur and thinks of other black curls and that earlier flash of want, the hot desire to touch. It had startled him then, but he thinks again of that very first night at Angelo's with Sherlock, the tentative feelers he had put out, not entirely sure what he wanted but curious nonetheless. He thinks of Lawrence, all smooth ebony skin. He thinks of Anthea, dark-haired and clever faced. He realises he's no longer quite so surprised. He digs his fingers into the spirals of curls and they are soft and they are soothing so he lets his palm linger on the warmth of that black body.

“Where's your dad, huh?” John says. “Not around much, is he.”

The cat says nothing but stretches out slightly, allowing greater access to the small furnace that is his belly and John obliges by rubbing at it gently, dragging through the fur with steady fingers. He sees the paws emerge and start to knead, white needle claws digging at empty air, but the yellow eyes remain closed, utterly trusting.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, remembering the food he had left out this morning before leaving the flat. Sherlock had still been there, watching from the corner of his eye as John had emptied half a can of the mackerel and chicken food into the small ceramic bowl. It was only as he had fitted a lid onto the can and put the remaining food into the fridge that Sherlock had spoken, sprawled in his black chair in his dressing gown and clearly in a sulk.

“He prefers dry food,” he had said, not looking up from his phone, glowing in his hand.

John had hummed noncommittally at that, going about making tea—two cups, one with sugar—and putting four slices of bread into the toaster.

Sherlock had sighed, loud and obvious, when he realised that John was ignoring him. “I said”—slightly louder—“that Billy doesn't like wet food.”

“Have you ever tried him on it?” John asked, worried now, because he wasn't sure how he was going to switch the cat over if he refused to eat. Could it be done? He made a mental note to check the internet.

Sherlock, however, had looked slightly disgusted at the suggestion. “Don't be an idiot. I know what my cat likes.”

“I did some research,” John had said, not quite looking at Sherlock, flicking the hot toast onto plates as the slices sprang up. “Most cats don't get enough water in their diet and male cats especially are in danger of urinary blockages, which basically involves the bladder exploding inside the body. And since a cat's instinct when injured or in pain is to hide it, often you won't notice something is wrong until it's too late. Not only that, but insufficient hydration on a daily basis leads to kidney failure later in life. So I thought maybe I—we—erm, Billy could give the wet food a try.”

Sherlock had turned completely white at this speech, his eyes moving away from his phone to fixate on John and there was a strange look on his face, puzzlement and the edgings of some softer emotion that John couldn't place.

“Research,” he had said. “You're doing a great deal of that for a cat that isn't even yours.”

“You're not doing anything for it,” John had snapped and he could feel his face reddening, embarrassed and angry all at once. John was used to being ignored, being invisible. He could understand it, rationalise it for himself, but it didn't stop him from having sympathy for another lonely animal.

Sherlock had said nothing, but his look had both grown both softer and more puzzled, until finally he had risen, dropping his phone into the pocket of his dressing gown and stretching. A pale flash of belly had had John turning quickly away, confused and cursing himself because he was obvious, so obvious.  _ Married to his work, idiot. _

Sherlock had vanished into his room then and hadn't emerged by the time John had left to investigate vet clinics. Now John is back and the flat is silent except for himself and Billy purring with the insistence of a idling lorry. He gives a last press of his palm against the cat's stomach then rises, his joints creaking where they don't outright click, his lower back stiff and slow to straighten. He's too old to be sitting on the floor, too worn by long months of stagnation and stuck in a body that will never fully heal.

He stretches, waiting for his body to realign itself, then walks to where the cat bowls are in the kitchen.

Both the food and the water bowl have been licked clean and John frowns, alarm bells starting to go off in his head. He calms them quickly, refusing to jump to conclusions. It could be an anomaly. He'll wait until tomorrow. See if the water dish is empty again. If it is, he'll take Billy in to the vet, even if it empties his entire account. He's survived on less before, he can do it again. Visions of diabetes and kidney failure flash through his mind and he stamps them down. _Don't jump to conclusions. Wait a day, see what happens._

His mind made up, he goes to the refrigerator and he opens it to find that somewhere in the intervening hours that he was away Sherlock has stocked it, and he feels a moment of relief that is quickly followed by guilt. They never discussed food and groceries, but it's clear by the sheer amount of food that it's not meant for one person alone. He doesn't want to encroach, however. He's already taken over the cat, he doesn't want to push his luck.

He reaches for a carton of apple juice he sees near the front, figuring a single glass won't hurt. He'll mention it to Sherlock when he sees him again, get it straightened out. When he picks it up, however, the lightness of it startles him and he frowns. He shakes it, feels the liquid sloshing around at the bottom. There's maybe half a glass left in the carton. First the cat, now Sherlock. He wonders if there's something in the air in the apartment that is causing a sudden onset of severe dehydration.

Uncertain suddenly about finishing the last of the carton, he puts it back into the fridge and shuts the door, pulling the last clean mug from the cupboard and filling it with water from the tap. He looks around at the kitchen, still littered with the detritus of moving. He has so little, all of it tucked away in the room on the second floor, except for his laptop which is sitting on the seat of Sherlock's black chair, definitely not where he put it this morning.

He frowns. He'll need to mention that when Sherlock gets back, along with the groceries and the cat. He wonders if he should start writing this down.

Speaking of Billy...

He looks around. The fleece bed is abandoned and the cat is nowhere to be seen.

“Billy?” he calls. “Where'd you go?”

He jumps because there is the sudden sound of a thud from the bedroom at the end of the hall behind him, and he turns around in time to see Sherlock emerge, clad in sleep pants and a sagging grey tshirt. He is yawning and stretching, his hair mussed and his face still flushed from sleep.

John thinks of his conversations with the cat and he can feel himself reddening, wondering if Sherlock heard him. Not that it matters, of course. He could probably deduce it with a glance regardless.

“Oh, John,” Sherlock says, “I didn't hear you come back. Tea?”

 

 


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the love to belle-of-the-fall for helping me make sense of the mess I've gotten myself into. Love you my darling.

“Sherlock.”

The way John says it, slightly choked, clearly embarrassed, has Sherlock suppressing a grin. He can still feel the warmth of John's hand on his stomach, can still picture the softness in his face, the tension fallen away from shoulders habitually hunched, the way his voice had gone gentler and higher. Sherlock feels slightly smug. He had known he'd be able to make John fall in love with him. That is, with the cat. _Fall in love with the cat._ He thinks of two days ago, John's doubt and disbelief that Sherlock could take care of a cat. He showed him, and he showed that he could listen. He had carefully emptied the food dish, flushing the disgusting mess down the toilet, and had dumped the water to prove that Billy the cat was indeed a healthy speciman. He had then drank most of a carton of apple juice while visions of his bladder exploding had run through his mind. He wonders now if he should have gotten cranberry instead.

“Is that a yes for tea?” Sherlock asks, and he watches John's colour slowly recede with the wary embarrassment on his face.

“Yeah, please. I, uh—I used the last mug. I'll do the dishes, yeah?”

Sherlock shrugs, rifling through the mess on the counter until he finds his from the morning. “No need.”

“I should do the dishes anyway, though.”

Sherlock doesn't particularly care. He says nothing as he watches John hunt down the liquid soap.

He fills the kettle and they stand together in the kitchen as it boils, Sherlock leaning against the counter, John sorting through the dishes in the sink, trying to find the plug so he can fill the basin. Sherlock watches him, the tight curve of his back, all the tension that had drained earlier—sitting on the floor of the sitting room, a hand buried in the fur of Sherlock's belly—is back now, a stiff line across his shoulders and sitting heavily on each vertebrae, visible through the thin material of his button up. Sherlock wonders about that body, about the wasted white flesh and the scars, the months of healing and the joints and muscles that would never be the same. He had caught a glimpse of course, yesterday after the shower when John had come out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his slim waist, his guard up even when he was alone with just a cat to see him. (Sherlock had seen a great deal more, too, when John had stepped over him.)

The twin rushes of the tap filling the sink and the kettle bubbling on the crowded counter fills the kitchen and neither of them speak. John is relaxed, wrist deep in the soapy water, running the sponge along the rim of a cup. Or anyway, as relaxed as Sherlock has ever seen him while in his human form.

But Sherlock wishes he could coax out that other John. The one who coos and smiles and says ridiculous things with his fingers buried in Sherlock's curls. He wonders what it would take to get that John out, and he thinks back to Angelo's, of his rejection of John's clear come on, and he curses himself for lack of foresight. He should have known, of course. Had known, the moment he had seen the stubborn belligerence in the army doctor standing in his lab at St Bart's. He had invited the man to live with him. He _must_ have known. His own stupidity was unpardonable and he wonders what he can do to convince John to pose that question a second time. The man is wound tight, surrounded on all sides by high defensive walls, penetrable only by small curly-haired cats, apparently. It's going to be a challenge. It might be impossible.

John catches him staring and turns a wary glance onto him, a cautious smile on the corner of his lips. Ready to be disarmed. Wanting to be. And Sherlock flashes him a quick bright smile of his own, an experiment, wondering if reciprocation would work. But he surprises even himself when he realises that it's entirely genuine.

“What?” John demands, his voice sullen, but that corner at his mouth is still turned up, as if expecting something.

Sherlock shakes his head, no idea what to say. “I got food,” he offers.

John frowns and Sherlock wonders what he's said wrong. Food is good, right? People eat? He had seen John's scarfing down enough pasta for three people on their first night together, as if realising for the first time in months that he was actually hungry. Or perhaps simply for the first time in months having enough food available to fill him.

John is concentrating fiercely on the dishes in the sink, his brows lowered over dark blue eyes, the corners of his mouth turned down. The light from the window highlights the grey of his hair and he looks old and worried and so tired.

“Do you not like food?” Sherlock asks. Has to ask, because he has no idea what this means, that face on John Watson, exhausted and unhappy.

John's frown deepens into something puzzled. “The food?” He flickers a glance at Sherlock, as if scared of meeting his eye. “I—I wasn't sure. We should probably talk about money.”

Sherlock's turn to frown. What on earth was there to talk about.

“Why?” he asks.

John looks up finally, wide-eyed with an expression bordering on uncertainty. “I don't want to get in the way.”

“John, you live here, too.”

“Oh. Well, yes. Okay. Thank y—”

“I mean, of course you'll be in the way.”

“Oh.”

“No, don't be an idiot, I don't mean it like that. I mean—you live here. All this is yours, too.”

“Wow. Okay. Really? No, sorry, I mean, okay. Thank you. Ta very much.”

“Don't be ridiculous, John.”

“Oh, piss off then,” John says, but he's trying not to smile and the misery, the tiredness, is lightened in that moment, and he doesn't look quite so old. “I thought you were making tea.”

The smile Sherlock offers in return is small but it's real, and he leans down far enough to rub his head against John's shoulder.

“Idiot,” he says fondly, and it's only when he feels John freezing suddenly against his cheek that he realises what he's doing.

_Shit._

“Um,” says John.

“I, uh, sorry, thought I dropped something,” Sherlock babbles, no idea what he's even saying. “Yes, here it is,” and he ducks down, scooping at something invisible on the linoleum at John's feet and thrusting his empty hand into the pocket of his sleep trousers before John can question it. “Sorry. Uh. Tea?”

John is staring at him, his expression fighting between confusion, concern, and amusement, and Sherlock can practically see the moment when he decides to ignore it, just another oddity of his mad flatmate. He turns back to the dishes and rinses off two of the mugs he's just cleaned.

“Ta,” he says, and hands them to Sherlock.


	11. Eleven

It's an odd thing to have done, John reflects, but hardly the strangest thing to have happened. He can still feel the pressure of that solid head against his shoulder when Sherlock finally hands him his mug and he gives a hum of gratitude, bringing it to his lips and sipping carefully. It's perfectly brewed, of course, and in the back of his mind somewhere he files away the fact that Sherlock didn't have to ask him how he takes it.

They spend the afternoon putting things away. Sherlock deals with the chemistry set and the books, the dozens of file boxes stacked around the room. John takes care of organising cupboards, dealing with linen and the myriad of odds and ends thrust in random places around the flat.

Slowly, over the next three hours, 221B Baker Street comes together, and by four o'clock John stands in the middle of the sitting room and looks at the scattered collection of belongings that don't belong to him in a flat he half owns. It is eclectic and random, with file boxes still stacked in odd places and knick-knacks on every surface and John should hate it, this crowded, cluttered space, the complete opposite of what his military sensibilities demand. But he doesn't. He loves it. The room is alive. He's conscious of it, he's almost sure. He can feel it breathing around him and he is cocooned, protected, the world safe on the other side of four walls and the idea of it penetrating is unthinkable.

He feels a nudge against his arm and he turns around to find Sherlock, holding out their fourth cup of tea.

“Ta,” John says and takes it even though he knows he's had far too much caffeine and he can feel the headache starting behind his eyes.

They sit together and it's companionable, a silence born of having spent several hours at a common purpose. The silence between them comes from the same place their laughter had after that first night, chasing through alleyways and over rooftops. The same silence they had shared when they had parted, before the morning after, before John had remembered real life again with a canvas bag filled with all his belongings slung over his shoulder and the certainty that this couldn't last.

But it had, and now he sits in a flat that is half his and his flatmate sits across from him, sipping tea from a mug that John himself had washed. It's...domestic. Unfamiliar. But good. Very good.

“This is good,” he says, and Sherlock looks at him, his gaze at once shrewd and calculating. He is always thinking, his mind never stopped or slowing. Those eyes are never just _looking._ Always, always they are _seeing._ It should be unnerving, but somehow it isn't. John has never had anyone look at him like this before, the way Sherlock looks at him, and it is unutterably gratifying to have that much power directed at him. For a brief moment the world narrows and John is suspended, powerless.

Then Sherlock blinks and his gaze flickers away and John returns to where the world is brown and grey and ordinary.

“Thanks for...” Sherlock waves a long-fingered hand about, his wrist flapping negligently at the room around him and all the objects in their places. John is no interior decorator, but the objects are unwrapped and visible at least.

“Not a problem,” John says. “Thanks for...” Just like Sherlock he trails off. He doesn't want to talk about this. “Listen. I hate to—that is. Billy.”

Sherlock is looking at him again and there is a sharp enquiry on his face, something vaguely bordering on suspicion.

“Billy.” Sherlock says, and his voice is low and wary.

“Does he have a vet? I mean. I could take him. If he hasn't been in a while, you know. It might be a good idea...” His voice fades at the suddenly forbidding look on Sherlock's face. “Okay, so...he doesn't have a vet?”

“Billy doesn't need a vet,” Sherlock informs him and his voice is flat and cold.

“Well, no, probably not. But he should be checked. You've been. Well. He doesn't seem to come out much when you're around.”

Sherlock glares at him but says nothing.

“Look, I don't mean anything by it. Cats can be...finicky. Is all. It doesn't mean anything. But he still needs to be looked after.”

“He is looked after. There's nothing wrong with him.”

“Well. You don't know that. Do you? Preventative tests once a year—”

“Yes, I know, you're an expert now. Spare me the lecture.”

“I'm not an expert, but this is pretty basic information. Look, I just. I can do it, yeah? I don't mind. But I just. Well. The next cheque doesn't come in till—and I should buy the groceries next time. I don't know how much you have—I mean—I shouldn't—Is it the money? We can split it, if you like.”

Sherlock waves this off. “Don't be an idiot. It's fine. The groceries, I mean. Not the cat. The cat doesn't need to go to the vet, John. He's fine. It's fine. Everything is fine.”

Except it's not. John knows it's not. You don't get a cat and then ignore it. Sherlock needs to be called on this but John doesn't know how far he can push this, how far the detective will let this go.

“Listen, I don't want to sound like I'm telling you what to do—”

“Then don't,” Sherlock snarls.

John frowns. “This isn't an experiment, Sherlock. It's not fingers in the fridge or a chemistry set on our kitchen table. This is something that's alive and you can't just ignore it.”

“Why are you so attached? It's not even your cat.”

“Clearly it doesn't think it's yours, either,” John snaps back.

Sherlock looks at him, his face furious but clearly unable to think of a rejoinder.

“It's sleeping,” he finally mutters, but there's a guilty flush high on his cheeks and John raises a cynical eyebrow.

“Yeah, right,” he says. “Listen, Sherlock. He needs to see a bloody vet.”

“Stop being such a bloody doctor, for God's sake!”

“I am a bloody doctor!”

“Then stop it! There's nothing wrong with me—”

Sherlock cuts himself off before he can finish pronouncing the vowel, but it's too late now and John frowns at him.

“I'm not talking about you—”

He cuts himself off. Forget this. He'll see how the cat's doing tomorrow. He'll take it in whether Sherlock gives him money or not. He's lived on less. The rent is paid, he has somewhere to sleep, that's all that matters.

“Forget it,” John says. “Just. Never mind.”

Sherlock stares at him, his face pulled tight and shuttered, and John stares back wanting to say so much and having no words for any of it. Money and home and loneliness and the sudden relief of being needed, even if it's only a cat that needs him.

“I'm going out,” he says.

It's almost imperceptible, the way Sherlock's shoulders pull up around his ears. “Where are you going?”

“I need some air.”

Sherlock frowns. “Open the window.”

John doesn't say anything, thinking of the pub three block down, except that he has no money (or soon won't anyway) so he thinks instead of the myriad parks and squares he hasn't found yet but will. He strides over to where his jacket hangs by the door, anger making his gait stiff and military. He spots his laptop, sitting on the coffee table and abruptly he remembers the other thing he wanted to say. And he should leave it, just go, but he's annoyed and frustrated, at himself and at Sherlock, and he turns a glare back onto the detective as he shoves his arms into his coat sleeves.

“Don't take my laptop.”

Sherlock doesn't say anything.

“Sherlock.”

“Mine was too far.”

“I don't care. Anyway, it's password protected.”

Again, Sherlock says nothing, and John stops halfway out the door to focus the full bent of his annoyance on him.

“Sherlock!”

“It's not my fault you make it so easy!” Sherlock bursts out, flinging himself from the chair, his arms flailing as he strides to the window, his dressing gown flapping halfheartedly around him.

“For Christ sake, Sherlock!” John snarls. “Just stay out of my things.”

“Go get some air, John,” Sherlock snaps back and John stands a moment, staring at that implacable back. He is tense and shaking, infuriated and frustrated and he has a sudden longing for Billy, for a small warm body, vibrating against the palm of his hand. But Sherlock's here and Billy is never out when Sherlock is here.

With a last glare at that silent back, John turns on his heel and marches down the stairs. He slams the front door as he leaves, the loud bang doing more to satisfy him than any amount of air could, London-choked as it is, and filled suddenly with the shriek of an angry violin from an upstairs window.

 


	12. Twelve

Sherlock watches John stride away, his posture military tight, his legs stiff with determined anger. He can see the clench of his hands before he is out of sight, going beyond the angle of the window, and Sherlock stops playing the moment he judges John is out of hearing range.

He goes straight for the laptop, flinging himself backwards onto the couch and pulling the machine onto his bent knees. He waits for it to boot up, impatiently tapping at the touch pad, and when it asks for the password he blithely types it in: _James._ For the first time he wonders what it is about this name that is worth protecting.

He finds the answer easily, a folder with a half dozen emails saved to the desktop, along with two dozen image files, all photographs of a John that Sherlock doesn't recognise, tanned and smiling, eyes squinting against a bright middle eastern sun, his blue eyes clear and laughing. At his side, in every photograph, is an officer with a quieter smile but with no less joy in his square face.

There is one photo that is especially telling. John, considerably shorter, has turned his face down, but he is leaning imperceptibly towards the man close at his side and the expression on his face—this unfamiliar John's face—is the expression of a bashful lover in the face of a sudden complement. And to his left, the much taller James is looking down at him and that smile—even Sherlock understands that smile.

He closes the file without looking at anything else and snaps the lid of the computer shut, listening as the quiet whir of its machinery gives a last insistent hum and goes silent. He stares at the ceiling trying to recognise what he's feeling. _Feeling?_ Yes, definitely feeling. It's strange. He thought he had managed to finally shut that off, but he is certain there is something stirring, and he remembers the way John had probed on that first night and Sherlock's own tacit refusal to engage.

But the awareness had been there, awkward even for Sherlock who is fully cognisant of his own tendency to ignore discomfort in others. He hadn't been able to get past this one, however. He'd had offers before, of course, but they'd been of a more vulgar kind. John's question about “boyfriends” though, was new. _Boyfriend_....that word. So _chivalrous._ The intent behind it so filled with meaning from the man Sherlock had been asking to move in with him. He still has no idea what to think of it, and now he can add on not knowing how to feel about it, either.

Four hours pass before he hears John return, and at that time he is still prostrate on the sofa, the laptop still perched against his knees. He hears John pause on the first floor landing, can almost hear his internal debate on whether or not to come into the sitting room. But lingering annoyance wins out and after three more seconds Sherlock hears John's footsteps continue up to the second floor. There is the brief holding of breath as Sherlock listens, then the exhale and the frown when he hears the latch of the door at the top click firmly into place.

He snaps upright, swinging his legs off the sofa and putting the laptop back on the coffee table with the quiet thunk of plastic hitting wood. He can hear John moving around above him, tracks his movement across the room, first the small toilet, where he is out of hearing range of the sitting room, treading the boards above Sherlock's bedroom, then back towards the front of the house, where Sherlock listens to the creak of the ceiling above him as John undresses. He will fold his clothes neatly, seams meeting in military precision. John is a man who needs control, even if it is only the control of choosing when to let himself go.

Only when the final creak of old floorboards sounds and then falls silent does Sherlock rise from the sofa and go to where his violin is leaning against the wall by the window. He picks it up and puts it to his shoulder. He doesn't think about the notes at all, just lets his hands move on their own until the softer tones of Sibelius floats through the flat.

This song is John, he understands. The shadow and the light. The major notes fooling one into thinking that it is something soft, something comfortable to be teased with and soothed by, something safe. But the darkness underlies it, springing up with furtive deliberation, blending with the melody, impossible to separate. He wants to write something, something that is just his, for John, but he's no Sibelius and he's never been pleased with his own compositions.

He plays for forty-five minutes, sliding from one piece to the next, finding the softest strains to coax upwards, and when he's relatively sure that it's safe, Sherlock eases the final note from beneath his fingers and puts the violin down.

He stands there for a moment, listening, and is pleased by the silence. He walks on quiet feet to the hall and pads noiselessly up the stairs.

The door is indeed latched tightly. His cat form would have been useless in opening it. Sherlock takes the knob in his hand and eases it anticlockwise and waits until he can't turn it any further before slowly pushing the door inwards. The slight creak of the hinges makes him wince.

But there's no need. It takes a moment to adjust to the relative dimness of John's bedroom, but it is dim only in comparison to the sitting room. The light haze of London soaks the room to its farthest corners, and on the centre of the large bed, John is entangled in his sheets and thrashing.

Sherlock stares at him, uncertain what to do. John is clearly asleep, in the throes of some nightmare, and in spite of the violence of his movements he is utterly silent, save for the huff of breath from straining nostrils. The light haze illuminates John's face, and as Sherlock steps closer into the room he sees the expression on his face, tortured, filled with fear, and he knows he should wake him except that you're not supposed to do that, are you? Or is that somnambulism he's thinking of? Sherlock can't remember, though he knows it's something he once knew. Deleted, unimportant. Or at least filed far enough back that he no longer has ready access to it.

He is still in his sleep trousers and tshirt, his dressing gown still wrapped around him, and his attire seems appropriate enough so he moves closer and when he is standing right beside the bed, John fighting a war from only feet away, Sherlock eases himself onwards, kneeling on the edge of the mattress. It gives under his weight and he tips forward, momentarily losing his balance. But he catches himself on the headboard even as John's fist swings towards him, and unconsciously he catches it in his own grip and he is expecting John to wake, to fight back, but John doesn't. Instead, he stills momentarily, and for the first time those clamped lips part and a groan is torn from between them.

John starts to thrash again, but it is slower, more sluggish, the fight draining from him, but he is whimpering now, his head flinging back and forth hard enough that Sherlock knows he'll have a sore neck in the morning. He slides closer and gently rests his hands on either side of John's head, easing it into stillness, and slowly John grows calmer until only the huff of his breath is left to betray the war being fought.

Sherlock is fully aware of having come here for one purpose. He thinks of those fingers on his scalp, pulling firmly at his ears, and he thinks of John's quiet smile when he doesn't realise he's being watched. Gently, so gently, Sherlock slides himself downwards until he is lying with his head at John's waist. He considers transforming but he's afraid of what will happen if John's nightmare starts again, of being crushed by a body far heavier than his own. As invulnerable as he sometimes feels, he knows the slim bones of a his second body are not indestructible, so he stays as he is, vowing to himself that after ten minutes he'll get up and leave. He reaches upwards and finding John's hand flung wide to the edge of the bed, he brings it back, clasping the fingers in his own, guiding them carefully to the top of his head.

There is a moment when he's not sure if this will work. John's hand is tense against his scalp, unmoving, and Sherlock is ready to flee, ready to bolt out the door at the slightest hint of waking. But after perhaps thirty seconds the hand relaxes and the fingers start to move, sliding into his hair and tangling there, the tips of his fingers making a slow kneading pattern against his scalp and _it is glorious_. He's aware of John's thigh pressed against him and he can feel the gradual easing of the muscles there, of the slow silencing of the furious breathes falling into more normal patterns, deepening and drawing out.

Sherlock would start to purr if he could. That hand feels incredible, the heat of its palm felt through the layers of his hair, the fingers threading into the curls and dragging upwards. It is a slow massage and Sherlock isn't sure if this is better as a cat or as a human. He wonders if there's a way to compare, if there is a measurable way to pitch human-happiness against cat-happiness to see which one is greater. But at the moment he's not sure he cares.

 


	13. Thirteen

John wakes up slowly, swimming for what feels like hours just below the surface of consciousness. He is warm, so warm. Cocooned and safe. His blankets are womb-like. There is light behind his eyelids but he couldn't open them even if he wanted to. Everything is hazy and half-aware and he is floating in a warm sea, suspended and immobile, the light above him and around him, bathing him in its glow.

It is the subtle vibration and the rough pebbled sound of a cat's purr that finally pulls him towards consciousness and even before John opens his eyes he's aware of Billy, curled up in the space between his shoulder and his neck, warm fur pressed against the side of his face.

When he finally does open his eyes, he does so reluctantly, conscious of an unfamiliar desire to remain where he is, with this tiny body next to his, sharing warmth and breath and life. He is so comfortable. The attic room so warm from the sun, beating down on the roof directly over his head, and the idea of getting up seems to involve far more effort than he's currently capable of expending. All the same, he feels incredibly rested and content and both these things are so oddly alien that he doesn't even try to dissect them, knowing that looking at what lies beneath the surface of them would immediately destroy the miracle of its effect.

“Good morning,” he murmurs to the cat, who raises his head and looks at John with yellow eyes slitted halfway shut, the bell around his neck softly ringing. “How did you get in here? I swear I closed the door.”

He glances over and sees the door, slotted partway open, and he wonders if it was Sherlock who let Billy in. He thinks of the tall detective in his room while he had slept on unaware. That presence, utterly consuming, going entirely unnoticed by him. Somehow John had not thought he could ever be unaware of Sherlock's presence in any room, but it seems he was mistaken. He's not sure if he's disappointed or relieved.

Billy, whose own gaze had followed John's to the open door, turns contemptuously away again, as if signalling that whatever had happened it had nothing to do with him.

When John finally does rise, fifteen minutes later, it is to the squawking protest of Billy, who objects to the sudden removal of his heat source, and John chuckles, giving one velvety ear a gentle tug before heading towards to small toilet.

He dresses slowly, going through the motions with a loose easiness that feels unfamiliar but that he could so easily accustom himself to. He is smiling to himself, not for any reason but because for the first time in years the tension seems to have left him and he doesn't understand it but it doesn't matter. He's aware of having slept and—for the first time in months, years—having slept well. Of having a home with groceries in the refrigerator and a creature that depends on him. He's aware of having a purpose, of having a body that works and that listens to him. He's aware of the beginnings of an infatuation that is young enough in its infancy and its novelty that he is left feeling giddy and slightly daring because of it. All of these things he is aware of, and he holds onto them, careful of squeezing too tightly around them and crushing them by accident.

Billy follows him down the stairs, the bell on the bright red collar ringing merrily at John's heels, and once again John becomes aware that the flat is empty and silent. Sherlock's bedroom door stands open at the end of the corridor and John cautiously puts his head in to check that it really is empty this time. He is conscious of a feeling of disappointment and frustration and desperation, because wherever Sherlock is it's not with him, and John had thought for a time that he could be useful, that he _had been_ useful, and obviously he was wrong about that. He feels some of the contentment of the morning slip away, escaping between fingers that, in fear of crushing it, had instead held it far too loosely to retain.

He checks Billy's bowls next and feels it, almost a physical sensation, as the rest of that miraculous happiness disappears and all the normal tension returns and his smile stiffens and falls away. He remembers all at once that his bank account is nearly empty, that the food in the fridge is there but it hasn't been bought by him, that having something depend on him means only that it will be far too easy for him to fail, that his infatuation is one-sided and will never be returned and anyway it is a horrible idea because what sane person starts something with their flatmate without the expectation of future disaster.

Because once again, both bowls are scraped clean and Billy is sitting next to them looking expectant and proud.

The food is not so worrisome, but the water...John isn't a vet but he knows this isn't normal. He picks up the bowls, refills the water at the sink then sets it down. Immediately Billy goes to it and John stands there and watches, incredulous, as the cat drinks and drinks _and drinks,_ and when finally the cat steps away, he turns a vaguely smug expression up towards John and John is aware of the oddest sense that he is meant to feel pleased somehow.

“You are the oddest creature,” he says and the cat starts to purr.

He washes out the second bowl and empties a tin of food into it (“grandmother's chicken soup”) then puts it on the floor before running back upstairs to his bedroom.

He makes a quick phone call to the vet to make sure they have an opening, then kneels beside the bed to pull out the large plastic bag from the pet store with its last item wrapped inside. He pulls it out of the crinkling plastic and pops the stiff framed seams of the black canvas cat carrier upright so that it's no longer pressed flat and John stares at the opening at the end, an opening that suddenly seems incredibly small. He is abruptly aware of the fact that he has no idea how to do this. He's not sure why, but the idea of the small clawed animal downstairs tamely submitting to being zipped into a small black bag seems incredibly unlikely.

He opens his wardrobe and pulls out his thickest jumper, a navy blue hand knit affair with a red and white pattern circling the shoulders and chest. He remembers what the girl at the pet store had said—young, pretty and smiling, and covered in cat hair, with what had seemed to John the most comprehensive guide to cat care ever compiled by humankind stored away in her head—and walking as casually down the stairs as he can manage, he leaves the carrier sitting in the hallway just outside the kitchen door.

He enters, the jumper slung over one arm, to find Billy sitting beside the bowls purring, and John doesn't even understand how it's possible, but the water dish is completely empty as well as the food dish. He stares at the tiny animal who has somehow managed to ingest an entire tin of food as well as a cup and a half of water in the space of ten minutes, and is utterly mystified. This shouldn't even be possible.

He kneels carefully at Billy's side and immediately the cat comes to him, rubbing against his arm and purring loudly, and John rubs at his head with one hand while with the other he carefully feels the floor around the bowls, hoping to find a puddle of spilled water there, but the floor is as dry as the bowls are.

Billy is clamouring for his full attention so John gives it, stroking those velvet ears and scratching that soft head. He coos adoringly at the little cat, and as he does so he lets the jumper slide down his arm, and just as Billy is crouched low on the floor, his eyes shut in ecstasy as John's left hand scrubs at the base of his tail, John suddenly moves, throwing the sweater over the cat and bundling it up in the folds of its thick expanse before the cat realises what's happening.

He is on his feet and halfway to the door where the carrier waits when Billy seems to catch up with what has happened and the bundle in John's arms gives a sudden lurch and a furious yowl—muffled by layers of wool—emerges long and loud and filled with unspeakable rage. Billy is struggling and John feels the tips of long claws prick his skin through the jumper and he hears a sound that would be hilarious if John wasn't so scared for his fingers, of Billy snarling and chewing at the same time, gnawing at the wool over his mouth, trying to clamp down on something vulnerable on the other side.

He makes no attempt to unwrap the furious animal, but kneels down and shoves the entire wrapped bundle into the opening of the carrier. He has it zipped just in time for the ruffled black head to find its way out of the jumper and he pulls his hand away just as Billy lunges for it, teeth bared and ears flat.

But the cat only makes that one attempt, and John doesn't know if it's because he has realised it's hopeless or because he's hoping to lull John into a false sense of security. Either way, John sits there for a moment, panting slightly, meeting the fury in Billy's wide yellow eyes, before with a tight smile that borders slightly on triumphant, he reaches for his phone and calls a taxi.

 


	14. Fourteen

He can't believe this is happening. He can't believe he let this happen. John. _John!_ He is going to kill John. He is going to murder him. As soon as he gets out of this carrier and is able to get away, he is going to find an empty place to transform and then John will have to be murdered. That is the only option. It will be easy. There are so many ways he could do it. Poison is probably the best, but not nearly as satisfactory as, say, strangling him. But if there is anyone who knows how to cover up a murder it's Sherlock. And who is there to miss John, after all? No one. No one would question his disappearance, except possibly that sister of his. Harry. Well. If she started to ask questions then Harry would just have to go, too. There are limited options at the moment. And every single one is limited to Sherlock killing John.

“You okay in there?” John says, his voice soft and sweet and Sherlock hisses and lunges at the side of the carrier on the odd chance that some stray appendage has lingered too near, but the taxi they are in lurches to the side and his hiss turns into a yowl of surprise and he lurches with it and falls. Tangled with the jumper that is inundated with the smell of John, it is several moments before he is able to regain his feet, and by then the taxi has already begun to slow and Sherlock can feel the sudden stillness as it stops and he hears John's wordless hum of thanks to the driver and then there is a scrabbling noise as John reaches for the straps and they are moving again.

It is the most uncomfortable thing he's ever experienced. The inconsistent sway of the canvas bag, compressing around him in a triangle as his weight drags the soft material into a point above his head. He crouches at the bottom and his growl rumbles low in his throat. There is a transparent mesh at the end where the opening is zipped shut on him where he can look out, but John isn't even carrying him the right way around and all Sherlock can see is the taxi pulling away before he is being carried backwards through a door and the outside world is shut away.

He is at the vet's.

The smell of other animals is heavy and everywhere, the varied individuality of each separate animal, the harsh chemical stench of the cleaning fluids used to hide it. He smells a hundred different urines and a dozen different bloods. He smells feces and drool and terror and desperation and anger and excitement and in spite of himself he can feel his hackles rising, his ears flatten. He crouches low and his eyes feel enormous in his head. He feels utterly exposed. He feels huge, conspicuous, as if the whole word is aware of him and there is nowhere for him to hide.

He is carried to the reception desk and the carrier he is in is placed on top of it and Sherlock can see the man sitting behind it, staring him straight in the eye, another idiot _Muggle_ who actually has the nerve to smile pityingly at him and lean forward.

“He's beautiful,” the receptionists says and Sherlock widens his mouth and hisses, baring every single sharp white tooth in his mouth.

And the receptionist laughs. _Laughs._

“Not too happy about being here?” he says and Sherlock is aware that the man is directing the comment at John.

He hears John's low chuckle in response. “A bit stroppy, yeah.”

The receptionist smiles, a wide white thing all gleaming teeth and glinting eyes and suddenly Sherlock realises that the two men are actually flirting. _Flirting._ While he, Sherlock Holmes, sits in a bag and waits for someone who couldn't even contrive to get a proper medical degree to poke at him with a collection of cold metal instruments, John and this _Muggle_ are actually _flirting._

He hasn't even realised he's started snarling until the receptionist (his name tag says “Lawrence.” What kind of a name is _Lawrence_ , anyway?) gives a look of amused alarm at him and takes a step back.

“Definitely not impressed,” John says wryly, and Sherlock watches as Lawrence the Receptionist's shining brown eyes glance wickedly upwards.

“We'll just have to try harder then.”

Sherlock lunges at the man, even as John pulls the carrier farther away.

“Christ. Sorry. He's not usually like this,” John says.

“It's alright,” _Lawrence_ says with an understanding smile, his voice far too friendly. “Cats are like that. A lot of them only really get attached to one person and won't let anyone else get near them. Clearly you've been chosen. You must be something special.”

The carrier shifts and abruptly Sherlock is looking into John's face, bent forward and peering in at him. His dark blue eyes are soft and there's a quizzical look on his face, the smile that's on his lips so gentle.

“No,” John says, and nothing more, but Sherlock can practically read the rest of the sentence on his face. _I'm nothing special._ “You're okay, love,” John says leaning closer, practically whispering, and Sherlock feels like he is being let in on a secret, something incredibly valuable. “I'll keep you safe. Promise.”

Sherlock hates himself almost as much as he hates John right now, because he can feel his fur flatten, his ears prick up. He's not angry anymore. He wants to be, he should be, because he's still in this carrier and whatever John's intentions Sherlock is still _at the vet._ It's incredibly unjust the way John smiles at him, every shield suddenly falling away to reveal the core, broken and battered underneath, the soft underbelly covered in scars that Sherlock doesn't think anyone's ever seen before at all. Whatever the idiot of a receptionist says, it isn't John that's been chosen: it's Sherlock. Or rather, Billy the Cat has been chosen, the single safe repository for John Watson's damaged soul. Sherlock the Human hasn't been afforded this privilege. But he wishes he had been.

John is staring at him, his face naked and utterly unarmed, and Sherlock— _Billy—_ is staring back. And for a brief moment Sherlock thinks that they could talk like this. That John might actually understand. But it's over in a moment, snapped away by the smooth voice of Lawrence the receptionist who clears his throat and says, “So, has he been neutered, then?”

 


	15. Fifteen

John sits on the bench waiting for the vet to call for him. The carrier is on his lap and its weight and the warmth of the small body on the other side of the canvas is comforting. He holds it to him, his arms encircling. It's a protective gesture, but also slightly possessive. Billy is Sherlock's cat, John knows, but he is thinking of all the things that can go wrong, the delicate balances of the body, so easily upset, and the spectre of disaster is looming and he finds that he's frightened of it. _Mine,_ he says in his own mind, frowning it down, giving it form and shape, something physical that can be pushed aside and defeated. _This one is mine. You can't have this._

Inside the carrier, Billy has gone oddly quiet. John isn't sure if he should be worried or pleased. He's been waiting for fifteen minutes now. Has filled out the forms and had his information logged. Soon he will know. Or at least, soon he will be in the way of knowing. He knows his power over Billy's health is limited, but he thinks of the water bowls lapped dry and knows he couldn't have done anything else. _Diabetes. Kidney disease._ They would explain the food intake, too. Though Billy's weight is normal for a cat his size and his coat is soft still and sleek. Whatever it is, he's caught it before it's wreaked too much havoc on the small body encased in canvas on his lap, safe in the circle of his arms.

“Billy Holmes?”

He glances up. A woman in khakis and a floral patterned button up is holding a file and looking enquiringly around the reception area. There's a stethoscope slung around her neck, tangled in the strands of her long brown hair.

“Here,” John says, taking the handles of the carrier and standing and her eyes move to him, friendly and warm. She smiles, both welcoming and reassuring. He knows that smile. Has worn it a thousand times himself.

She holds out a hand. “Doctor Macgregor.”

“John,” he returns, taking the offered hand and shaking it.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “Come on in here.”

She leads him past the reception desk and into an examination room to the left. A cold metal exam table gleams dully under fluorescent lights, pulling the focus of the whole room. A cracked white counter holds a sink to the right and straight ahead a shelving unit displays the implements of the profession: Isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, betadine solution, cotton balls, tongue depressors, a basket with bandaging materials neatly organised and displayed, several pens, a second stethoscope, two different needle gauges with plungers and in a separate container beside it, five more gauges of needles without the plungers attached, their cheerful colours standing out through the clear sterile packaging against the white paint of the wooden shelf. There are Vacutainers, unused fecal containers, empty specimen jars with the seals still intact, and on a shelf higher up, a model of a cat's skull with the different stages of tooth decay and another model of a knee joint with the rough edges of arthritis in clear evidence.

“So, how is Billy doing today?” Doctor Macgregor asks, closing the door behind her and putting the file down on the counter beside the sink.

“I'm not sure,” John says with a frown. He puts the carrier on the metal table and pulls the zipper open, ready to snatch his hand away at the least warning. But Billy is quiet and still in the nest he's made of John's sweater and tentatively, John offers his hand inside for sniffing.

Billy ignores him completely.

“Here,” Doctor Macgregor says, picking up the latter half of the carrier and tipping it up. With a hiss, Billy comes tumbling out and John catches him before he can leap away.

“He's not too pleased at the moment,” John says apologetically, but the vet just smiles understandingly.

“They never are,” she says, and she takes the cat from his arms with calm efficiency.

He watches the exam, noting every movement, ticking things off in his own head as she completes them. Thyroid glands, lymph nodes, abdomen. She checks his mouth, the back of his throat, shines a light into his eyes and his ears and runs a flea comb through his fur. She listens to his heart and his lungs and at the very last she lifts his tail and looks underneath.

“Do you know how old he is?” the vet asks.

“No, sorry. It's my flatmate's cat.”

She glances at him, frowns. “You have permission to have him treated?”

John lies without a qualm. “Absolutely. I mean, nothing drastic. Just get him checked. He's been drinking.”

Her frown deepens. “Your flatmate?”

“No. Sorry. No, Billy. The cat.”

The frown lightens and she turns her attention back to the cat, pressing firm fingers into Billy's abdomen again. “How much?”

“A cup and a half this morning alone, in about a ten minute span.”

Her eyes fly to him and he can see the scepticism, quickly masked. “That's a lot.”

“Yes. About three cups yesterday all told, too. It's just...a lot.”

“It's not possible,” she says flatly.

He can feel the first flickers of annoyance. “I know, I thought it was pretty unbelievable, too. That's why I brought him in.”

“Did you check to see if the water maybe spilt?” He can see her losing interest. She doesn't believe him and he hates it because he knows how ridiculous it sounds. He can't hold it against her because he wouldn't believe him, either.

“I did. Look, I know it's a bit unbelievable—”

“Listen, John.” He can see the pity on her face, the exasperation, the beginnings of condescending amusement. He can feel his irritation rising, his patience wearing thin at the interruption, at the tone.

“It's Doctor Watson,” he interjects, and he can feel the steel in his face as all his muscles pull taut and harden.

She pauses. “Sorry?”

“My name. It's Doctor Watson. I trained as a surgeon at Bart's and just came home from a tour in Afghanistan where I served as a field doctor on the front lines. And I know how ridiculous this sounds, but it did happen. It happened right in front of me. The water did not just evaporate inside of ten minutes. It didn't spill. There is no leak in the bottom of the bowl that I failed to notice. _The cat. Drank it._ Now please. Can we skip over the bits where you tell me it's not possible, because I know this. I know this isn't possible. But it happened. So. Can we just go to the bit where I've convinced you and you tell me what I can do to make sure my cat is okay.”

She is staring at him, a little taken aback, but still with that scepticism and he wants to take hold of her and shake her. He doesn't, of course. He reaches for Billy instead.

“I'm sorry I've wasted your time,” he says. “I'll find somewhere else to take him.”

She shakes herself slightly, as if trying to shift herself out of a trance, and blinks. “Sorry. I apologise, Doctor Watson. It just...it is _very_ strange.”

“Yes, I am aware,” he says, and unbends enough to offer a tight lipped smile and she returns it with something like bemused relief.

“Well,” she takes a breath, looks slightly at a loss as she stares at the cat under her hands. “I would definitely say there's something wrong there,” she says slowly. “I can't find anything unusual with a basic exam. He's in remarkably good condition. Skin, coat, teeth. I'd say he's quite young still.”

“I think so, yeah. Any idea of the breed?”

She frowns, a thoughtful hand running through the sable curls. “No, it's a bit unusual, isn't it. Probably a mix of some kind.”

He nods. “Right. Well, what would you suggest? For the drinking, I mean.”

“Blood work is always a good idea. That's the initial step and fairly basic and relatively unintrusive. If that comes back clear, I'd suggest talking to your flatmate, see how far they're willing to go. We might be looking at x-rays or even ultrasounds.”

“Right. Okay.” He's mentally reviewing his bank account and knows he's in trouble. “Okay. Blood work. That's fine.”

“Also, do you know if your flatmate has any idea of getting Billy neutered?”

“Oh. Erm. We haven't really talked about it. Is he not?”

“No. It might be a good idea, though. Billy's still young, but males can get temperamental when they're older and left unneutered. They often start spraying and removing the testicles will lessen the chances of that considerably. They can also be aggressive and territorial if left whole.”

“I—I would need to talk to my flatmate first. But the blood work. Let's do that.”

She smiles reassuringly. “Of course. I'll take him round to the back,” she says, and takes hold of Billy's scruff as she puts her second arm underneath him, scooping him close to her side in a firm hold. “You can wait out front if you like. I'll bring him back out to you when we're finished.”

“Right. Thanks,” John says, and moves ahead of her to open the door.

Because his back is turned, he doesn't quite know how it happens. One minute Billy is silent and docile in Doctor Macgregor's grip, the next second he hears her give a yelp and a curse and the piercing shriek of an enraged cat fills the little room. The door is already open and he's not quite fast enough to shut it again as the black streak that is Billy flies past him and out of the room.

John doesn't even stop to think about it. He's aware of Doctor Macgregor's soft curse at his back, the red flash of blood out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't even pause, flinging himself out the door and after the cat. He is aware of the crack of the door slamming against the wall in his wake and Doctor Macgregor shouting a warning for Lawrence the receptionist. He is far too aware of his heart, of the air in his lungs, of the rush of capillary and vein.

It's too late, of course. John knows it's too late, even before he's made it out into reception where Lawrence is clutching an arm, torn and bleeding to his chest. John should have known. This is what happens, of course. This is what will always happens.

A woman with a small dog in her arms is entering through the front door. Half a dozen voices are raised in warning. A labradoodle in a harness is barking madly at the end of its leash. The woman in the doorway, her Yorkie yipping disjointedly in her ear, is deaf to it all.

And John—too late, infinitely, always too late—can only watch as the small black streak slips between her legs and disappears out the door.

 


	16. Sixteen

He is angry. He is so angry. He is _incandescent_ with rage. He is shaking, his entire body quivering as the clinic vanishes behind him and he weaves between legs, through cars. Horns sound and breaks squeal. Someone is yelling and several hands reach out to him but he avoids them easily, hissing and swiping when one woman gets too close.

He transforms in the first alleyway he comes to. A man, slumped against the wall between two dustbins, stares as Billy vanishes and Sherlock grows into his place, and Sherlock casts an _Obliviate_ charm at him with a wordless wave of his hand. He doesn't even glance back at the man, leaves him blinking confusedly at empty air as he strides angrily back onto the pavement and unhesitatingly turns towards Baker Street.

It takes less than fifteen minutes for him to reach the front door and he listens to it crack against its hinges as he flings it open and the satisfying crash as it slams shut behind him again afterwards manages somehow to only fuel his rage further.

He leaps up the stairs and is grateful that no one is there to see him when he momentarily forgets he only has two legs. He's been spending too much time as a cat. Far too much time. It's finished, though. It's done. Either John disappears or Billy does. Sherlock hasn't decided yet which.

The door to the kitchen is open and he walks straight through, heading for his bedroom without pause and going straight for the space behind his mattress where the slim box resides, and he pulls it out and opens it without so much as a pause.

The wand is sitting there. Nine inches long, the yellow yew wood polished and gleaming. He can't see the thestral hair, but he can feel it the moment he picks the wand up, taking the slim wood between his fingers and feeling the weight of it, the shadow, the responsibility, the world. He's eschewed this. But holding it right now, using it. This feels right in a way he isn't used to magic feeling. Settled, tamed, strong. He only vaguely remembers his first wand, unicorn hair and ebony, and he wonders if he ever felt like this when he had held that one. If he had deleted it. He doesn't think so. He doesn't think he would ever delete something like this. This feeling of focus. This feeling of wanting to hold it before him like a sword, like a shield. This feeling of wanting to thrust it into the air and set the sky on fire.

He doesn't, of course. That wouldn't be practical and probably not actually possible. He is aware of his anger draining, however, of some of his rage filtering away and he wonders if the wand is actually responsible. If it's syphoning it off for later use. He wonders if the next time he points the wand at something, all the power of his previous rage will come out of its tip. He wonders what it will do. If it has a self-proscribed purpose now. He wonders about this even though he knows, he _knows_ that this isn't how magic works.

When he leaves his room he is much calmer, but the resentment is still there, simmering in the background. He's no longer angry. The rage is gone. But he is aware of a need to punish John somehow. The vet clinic isn't far away. He wonders how long he has to wait for John to come home. It shouldn't be long. Maybe ten minutes. He can't have been far behind Sherlock. He imagines John's sheepish expression. He imagines him slinking into the flat, offering tea, maybe trying to cajole Sherlock a bit before dropping the news that his cat is gone, that John has lost Billy and it's all John's fault and he should have listened to Sherlock, Sherlock knows best and John should have realised that. Sherlock wonders how long he will let John stew. How many concessions he can get out of him. He wonders if eventually he'll allow Billy to come back, maybe limping a bit, maybe meowing pitifully at the door. Perhaps he'll go out and get himself scraped up somehow, add a bit of veracity to it. Make John feel as guilty as possible.

He grins to himself, a tight-mouthed smile that has nothing to do with amusement, and goes to the couch to wait. He sprawls his full length out on it and steeples his hands and waits to hear the telltale sounds of John coming home.

After ten minutes pass Sherlock begins to prepare himself, arranging his face and his body, completely relaxed and unsuspicious.

After twenty minutes he starts to feel the edges of annoyance and impatience creeping up.

After thirty-five minutes he is actually fidgeting. Shifting restlessly on the couch and frowning. All pretence has left him. He is irritated and mentally cursing the absent army doctor and wondering how much of an imbecile he has to be in order to get lost between the vet clinic and Baker street.

After an hour he gets up, stamping into the kitchen and noisily making himself a cup of tea that he doesn't drink, standing at the window and letting it get cold in his hand.

After two hours he picks up his violin and starts to play, harsh, angry compositions, all cut off notes and abrupt ascensions of minor keys that he leaves without resolution.

He plays until his arms are sore and his fingers start to ache. He has been standing at the window the whole time, his eyes sharply fixed to the pavement, waiting for that familiar grey-blonde head to appear. But it doesn't and he wonders if he missed it somehow. If John had actually sneaked into the flat without Sherlock noticing and is now skulking in his bedroom, frightened and ashamed and trying to pretend nothing has happened.

Sherlock feels his anger pricking him again and with it comes indignation, rearing its familiar head. He puts the violin down more roughly than he should and with purposeful strides makes his way to the second floor where John's door is cracked open.

But it's too quiet. Too still. Sherlock knows before he goes in that John isn't going to be there but he pushes through regardless.

The room is empty. Neat. It looks almost the same as it did before John had moved in, the only difference being that the bedding has been tucked in with military precision without a wrinkle or a crease to be seen. It is the only sign that Sherlock has that John was ever here at all.

He can feel the panic start before he even understands what it is. And even when he recognises it he doesn't know exactly what it means. Was John here? Did he slip in when Sherlock was distracted, pack his things and leave? But that isn't right. That isn't like John. And Sherlock isn't sure if he's convinced of this because he wants it to be true or because it is, in fact, something that he knows to be correct. He hates this ambiguity. He hates this sudden inability to distinguish truth from desire and with a sudden frown he strides across the room and throws open the wardrobe.

He lets out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. It is nearly empty, only half a dozen shirts and a coat hang there, but Sherlock remembers the single canvas bag that had contained every single possession that Doctor John H. Watson could have been said to own and he knows that this is it. That this is everything. He shuts the doors and goes to the dresser, and though he's convinced that John hasn't left him, he still opens every drawer, even the ones he knows will be empty, and his mind catalogues the pants, the socks, the vests, the jumpers and trousers and tshirts. Next he goes to the bedside table and he opens the slim drawer in the mismatched piece of antique furniture and sees a book, a torch, a bottle of pills that don't look to have been opened. He picks them up, though, looks at the date on the label. Prescribed more than a month ago, never opened, but still kept in the bedside table. Sherlock can feel his frown deepen. Remembers the gun and feels a slow rush of resurrected panic.

“Sherlock?”

He jumps and drops the bottle. It lands with a hollow smack on the floor, the pills giving a single rattle of protest as they land and resettle.

John is standing in the open door, watching with something like fear in his eyes.

“John.” He frowns. “I didn't hear you.” He's conscious of a certain amount of guilt. John is pale, his eyes red-rimmed and exhausted looking. He looks broken, far more than Sherlock's ever seen him, more even than on that first day with every wall up, every muscle taut and ready for an attack.

“I was waiting for you.” Sherlock doesn't even know why he says that.

John gives a short nod. “I was looking—” he stops. Takes a breath. Starts again. “I'm sorry. I was looking—I—” He stops again. Takes another breath. “I can't find Billy,” he finally says and his voice is firm, his gaze tired but unwavering as he watches Sherlock from the doorway, not even coming into the room, the room that is unarguably his, his entire body focused, compact and upright and determined but utterly closed off. “I took him to the vet this morning. I'm sorry Sherlock. I'm so sorry. He was drinking so much and I was so worried. But he got away, escaped out the door. I swear I looked for him. I looked everywhere. Jesus Christ, Sherlock. I'm so sorry. I checked all the shelters. The streets—” he stops, his voice breaking and Sherlock, his wand tucked up his sleeve, his rage, his anger, his indignation, all of it evaporated, stares in horror at this fallen man across the room from him.

“John—”

“I'll find him. I swear I'll find him. Just...give me time, yeah? He's fine. I'm sure he's fine. Just scared or—probably angry, actually. Listen, do you have a photograph of him? I want to make posters. Hang them around the neighbourhood, around the vet clinic, too.”

Sherlock is staring at him, knows he needs to say something, do something. He is incredibly aware of his wand up his sleeve, can practically feel it buzzing. He doesn't even really need the wand. _Obliviate._ That's all it would take. He could end this so easily. John would forget Billy. If he wanted, John could forget Sherlock, too, but Sherlock doesn't want that. Sherlock stares at John. He is determinedly holding Sherlock's gaze, patiently waiting for his condemnation, his disappointment, his anger. Something. John is waiting and Sherlock realises that he has lost all desire to give him any of it.

So Sherlock smiles, a small thing, but it reaches his eyes and he can see John's expression—relief, gratitude, guilt, grief—just a momentary flicker of it all before he shuts down again and the soldier is back with a quick nod and a swallow and tired eyes falling finally away.

“Tea?” Sherlock asks, and John gives a short bark of reluctant laughter.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”


	17. Seventeen

They are watching telly. _Doctor Who._ It is a surreal experience.

John is stiff and uncertain, crowded in the corner of the sofa, his back straight and his feet planted firmly on the floor in front of him. His shoes are still on. His jacket is tossed over the armrest at his side. The door is still open, the stairwell dark now. It's late. Officially passed from late afternoon into solid evening and soon it will be night. John thinks of Billy. Can't think of anything but. He imagines him locked in someone's basement, whining pitifully at a door from behind which no one can hear. He imagines him hungry in some shadowy alleyway, cowering from the noise of the street. He imagines him in the street, the bright lights of a car coming towards him, unavoidable and enormous. He imagines him injured and slowly dying, ignored and unseen, bleeding out in red rivulets onto the filthy pavement.

John doesn't understand why he's still here. How he hadn't come home to find his belongings in a heap on the pavement. He had thought, for the briefest moment, upon finding Sherlock in his room that the detective was packing his things, getting ready to toss him out. He wouldn't have blamed him for an instant. But he knew that there was no way for Sherlock to know what had occurred. No way for him to know without John telling him and John had had to tell him.

John had been expecting anger. He had waited for the already pale face to turn even paler. With fear, with rage, with disappointment. With something. But it hadn't. Instead there had been relief, palpable the moment John had appeared in the door and those clear eyes had turned towards him. Relief, thankfulness. Stark for a brief handful of seconds before the face had shut down again, purposefully blank until John had confessed and instead of the rush of anger, of fear, Sherlock had given him....a smile. Small but genuine. An offering that John had no idea what to do with. But it was an offering. Something precious and real and John has it in his mind now, floating before his conscious eye even as David Tennant makes a tight-lipped quip towards the camera and vanishes inside his blue box on the other side of the television screen. The sound of the TARDIS fills the sitting room and John barely hears it.

“This is ridiculous,” Sherlock says.

For the first time since sitting down, John is jolted from his self-imposed mental exile and glances at the sprawling form of the man at his side.

Sherlock is leaning against his arm of the sofa, his legs gangling across the seat towards John. His left foot is inches away from John's thigh, his long toes bare and flexing against the seat cushion. It is close enough to touch and John almost does. Wants to feel that flesh, to see if it's as cold as it appears. He suspects not. He suspects a great heat, some inner wildfire capable of blazing with ruinous intent across anything that is settled in its path, and John is both terrified of it and intrigued by the idea. He wonders what it would feel like to be consumed by that blaze. He remembers the feeling of being in the spotlight of those eyes and he imagines it to be just like that but a thousand times more deadly, more subsuming. He wonders how long he could survive a single spark of that focus and isn't sure if he would even want to.

“John!”

His eyes snap up from their contemplation of those toes and John sees those stranger eyes, light and intent on his face, a question in their expression that John isn't ready to answer.

“Sorry. Thinking of Billy.”

Not completely a lie.

Sherlock's face freezes for a heartbeat before something careful shutters over it and the detective looks away, focusing his eyes back on the flickering screen.

“Don't,” he says. “He's fine.”

John wants to retort, wants to shake him and demand of him why he's pretending not to care, why he isn't more worried, why he's letting this go so easily. But he doesn't. It occurs to him that Sherlock is giving this to him and so he swallows and nods.

“Right. I should check. If he's outside—” he is already moving to rise, already reaching for his jacket to put on, ready to scour the streets despite the heaviness of all his limbs, the tension settled in him that has become painful but numbingly familiar. Except that he doesn't have a chance. That foot is suddenly in his lap and pushing him down and, half-posed as he is, he falls, unbalanced, backwards. Sherlock is looking at him, wide-eyed and intent.

“Stay.” It's a command, deep-voiced and firm.

“Sherlock—”

“He's fine, John. I leave my window open for him. He goes in and out all the time. He knows his way around London.”

“Cats only have a territory of about a hundred square feet—”

“John.”

John's mouth snaps shut.

“John,” Sherlock says again. “Billy is fine. I didn't tell you earlier. I was—” he waves a vague hand. “When you told me you had taken him. Angry. But Billy came back. Ate his food, drank some water—”

“How much?”

Sherlock looks wary. “What?”

“How much water? Listen, I know you think he's fine, but the amount of water he drinks—”

“Not that much. Only a bit.” Sherlock hesitates. “A teaspoon?”

John stares at him. “A teaspoon.”

Sherlock looks incredibly guilty and John can feel something sinking in him. He doesn't want to do this, go over Sherlock's head, but it isn't right. He _knows_ this isn't right.

“Sherlock. Billy is sick.”

“No. He's fine. Sometimes he does that. Drinks a lot. For a couple of days. He stops after a day or two, though. Always done it. Always, since he was a kitten.”

“You've had him that long?”

Sherlock's expression is hunted. “Yes?” he says and John hears the question in it.

“It's just...Mrs Hudson didn't know about him. I thought....how old is Billy, anyway?”

Sherlock is silent, staring at him, and John can practically see the mathematics happening behind his eyes.

“Two,” Sherlock finally says, and his voice is so firm and decided that John begins to doubt himself. He nods.

“The vet thought somewhere around there,” he says, and he almost misses the flash of relief on Sherlock's face before it turns resolutely back to the television and John can no longer see the subtlety of expression that passes over it. He feels regret. Regret that those eyes have turned away. That he's ceased to be worthy of their notice. He wants them back. He wants to feel again how he did upon them first settling on him, days ago now in that lab, when the world had shrunk in an instant to those technicolour slants and John had suddenly become the centre of it.

But they don't look at him again.

David Tennant is shouting _allonsys!_ and the TARDIS is taking off and John is aware, in spite of himself—over top the relief of knowing that Billy really is okay and that he doesn't deserve the notice of those eyes anyway—that Sherlock's foot is still planted firmly in his lap.

 

 


	18. Eighteen

John hasn't moved Sherlock's foot.

Sherlock is utterly aware of it where it is, John's growing heat seeping through denim and melding indistinguishably with his own. He has no idea why he's leaving it there. He has a better idea of why John is leaving it there.

He remembers John's tentative probe on their first night at Angelo's. He also remembers the insistence with which he had said _“Not his date,”_ as if this was important somehow. As if it was relevant in a way that Sherlock didn't realise. What possible difference could it make? None to him. But he thinks of the file on John's computer marked _James_ and he thinks he might be beginning to understand.

Sherlock stretches suddenly, yawning hugely and letting both his legs extend momentarily over John's lap. When he relaxes again, both his feet are now in John's lap and one heel is firmly placed in the crease between John's thigh, directly on the spot where limb becomes torso.

John has frozen in place and Sherlock can feel the tension that holds him there. Sherlock is very aware of where his foot is resting but he stares at the television, pretending to be intent on the screen. Every nerve is strained towards John, wondering what he's going to do.

The tension mounts. Every moment that passes he is expecting John to say something, to do something. On the screen, half aware, Sherlock watches as a blonde teenager whines about something on a beach.

John clears his throat. Sherlock doesn't even flinch.

“Your feet.”

Sherlock pretends to tear a fascinated gaze from the screen and turns to look, wide-eyed at John. He is staring at the appendages in his lap as if trying to figure out what they are.

“Yes, those are my feet,” Sherlock says.

“I just.” John clears his throat again. “It's just.” He stops. Doesn't even trail off. His voice just vanishes and Sherlock watches, transfixed, as he swallows.

“Do you mind?” Sherlock asks lazily. “It's just my knee....usually I have the whole sofa....” He flexes slightly, his foot pressing closer against John and he is extremely proud of the fact that he shows absolutely no reaction when he brushes against something that he probably should have expected.

_Interesting._

John squeaks.

“Hm?”

John is staring fiercely at the television where the blonde is now passionately embracing a gangly man in a hideous suit.

Sherlock watches John shake his head tightly, his lips a thin line. “No,” John says, and his voice is pitched a full octave lower than normal. “No, it's fine. Just—” he reaches down and Sherlock watches, fascinated, as he gingerly takes Sherlock's foot between three careful fingers and shifts it towards his knees. “Just. A bit sensitive there,” John says and Sherlock is fully aware of the heat of those fingers, of the red flush on John's face, of the way John is staring fixedly at the screen as a redheaded woman starts to have hysterics, clearly seeing nothing. He is aware of these things, as he is aware of the flush mounting his own cheeks as he realises that his foot, safely bestowed now on John's knee, is still covered by John's hand.

 


	19. Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another super short one, sorry guys! More tonight, though!
> 
> To tide you over, cloisteredself and nosetothewind94 made fanart!!!!!!!!! I don't know how to make pretty links on AO3, though, so you will have to make do with ugly links to awesome things.
> 
> http://nosetothewind94.tumblr.com/post/87823466418/turns-out-im-horrible-at-drawing-cats-ah
> 
> http://cloisteredself.tumblr.com/post/89231335290/if-you-arent-reading-ceys-awesome-fic-nine

John doesn't look at his hand. He doesn't look at Sherlock's foot, pale and naked beneath it. He can't. Such a stupid, simple thing to suddenly find to be too much. John doesn't have any kind of fetish to speak of, but there is something utterly compelling about that white flesh under his fingers. It is hot to the touch, almost fevered, and John wants to put his face against it, feel its fire on his cheek, on his tongue, on his eyelids, at his temple. He knew it would be hot. He knew the illusion of ice was just that—illusion. Sherlock is burning against his palm and John wants to stifle it with the wet of his tongue, test its fever with the pressure of his lips. John's never had a fetish to speak of, but he's wondering suddenly how quickly that could change.

On the television screen, Donna, her memory wiped, babbles on the phone and fails to notice the desperation in the Doctor's eyes.

“John.”

His whole body flinches and he knows there is no way that Sherlock has failed to notice it. He turns reluctant eyes towards him and the effort it takes for John to force his gaze upwards, to meet those slanted eyes, is monumental. He regrets it immediately, because he sees at once how dark those light eyes have turned, how flushed the pale face has become, and it strikes John for the first time that he is not alone in this. That this entire thing has been entirely deliberate on Sherlock's part from the very beginning.

It is a realisation that should probably comfort him, but instead he can feel panic rise. In his head, he's already gone from heated gropings on the couch to the next morning when Sherlock would suddenly fail to meet his eyes and the inevitable _“perhaps this isn't working after all”_ speech that would come hard on its tail. John thinks of his room upstairs, the groceries in the fridge, of Billy, of Sherlock himself and the way his heart has begun to beat and the knowledge of what that inevitable rejection will do to him, so close on the heels of what could so easily have been acceptance. He remembers James Sholto and the wreckage of his heart in the aftermath of that slow hurricane. He remembers James falling apart and everything that they were falling with him, John powerless to hold it up on his own. The pity and the regret in those warm blue eyes...

Eyes that are nothing like the cold fire of Sherlock's. There is nothing slow about the detective, nothing kind and gentle. John knows without being told the quality of the rejection he will be served. Alienation and quiet brooding and passive aggressive denial. It will break him, more thoroughly even than James had, who could at least admit the pain he was both feeling and inflicting.

John stares into Sherlock's eyes, desperate, so desperate for anything but the conclusion that he is so certain of, but the gaze that meets his, while hungry, is also confused and more than a little frightened. It is a different fear from John's own, however. He fears the end, while Sherlock—the detective, the scientist, the genius—fears the experiment itself.

He forces himself to move, almost throwing those pale feet from him in his sudden determination to rise. The credits are rolling on Doctor Who, a gift of timing that John is too grateful to reject.

“I'm tired,” he says, aware of how short his tone is but unable to change it. “I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“John?” Sherlock's voice, lost, the confusion rising to the surface. John forces himself to keep going, not even turning when he reaches the doorway. The silence he leaves behind him as he mounts the stairs is speaking, but he shuts his ears and refuses to listen to what it has to say.

 


	20. Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god I meant to write so much more today. Tumblr why you so distracting!!!
> 
> If anyone's interested, though, the particular distracting thing this time is an RP blog game that a handful of us have started. URL for mine is johnnhwatson.tumblr.com and I've got everyone else linked from my page. It's ridiculously addictive. If I totally ignore my own blog now you all know why.
> 
> Also, I want to say thank you all so much for all the amazing comments. You are all so brilliant and gorgeous. You guys are keeping this fic going between you. Even if I don't respond, please please please know that I have read it and I have quietly added you onto my "adore this person forever" list. You guys are amazing. I am so honoured that you've all decided to come along with me on this one.

Sherlock can hear the door click shut at the top of the stairs. He is half sitting up, still staring at the empty doorway to the landing. His foot is burning where John had touched it.

_What do I do?_

He thinks of Billy, of changing form, slipping into the room like he had the night before. Letting John stroke his hair, of never letting him know.

But he doesn't want that. He doesn't know why but somehow the idea of those fingers settling into cat fur instead of human hair, of feeling the heat of that palm against soft pointed ears instead of the sturdy cartilage of a human organ, is disconcertingly wrong. It wasn't before. He wonders what's changed since last night. If it is he who is responsible for that change or if the fault lies with John. He thinks of that hand on his foot, of his foot pressed into the crease of two thighs and feeling the evidence of something he had both counted on and yet not expected.

He doesn't understand how that makes sense but it does. The two things contradicting each other and yet co-existing in the common space of his mind. He adds this phenomenon to the room called _John,_ and after a moment's hesitation, he adds the particular organ (the feel of it still branded against the sole of his foot even now) that had produced this phenomenon in the first place. Without meaning to, he starts going down the list of things _John_ that he had collected tonight, and after several uncertain starts, adds:

 

  * The way John's breath had hitched and sped up when Sherlock had first put his foot into John's lap.

  * The exact pattern of the flush that had suffused John's face and throat.

  * The calluses that had scraped across the skin of Sherlock's arch.

  * The way John had squeaked.

  * The way his voice had lowered and deepened.

  * The darkened gaze of those lake-blue eyes, staring at Sherlock hugely from the other end of the sofa, expectant and terrified, needing something and fearing something.

  * The involuntary shiver that all these things had produced in Sherlock himself, which he isn't sure belongs in the _John_ room but he's not sure where else to put them and for some reason he is reluctant to delete them entirely.




 

He examines this catalogue carefully, staring around this once-empty room and the random clutter of things now occupying that space. He wonders why he's bothering. Why this is so important. He thinks of his own reaction to John's hand and he knows he's curious. He knows that a large part of him had been willing to see just  _ how  _ curious. But there are too many other things in the way, as well, things in himself that he doesn't recognise at all, and it's with frustration that Sherlock realises that he's unsure of their exact nature. Ordinarily attuned to the baser side of human nature, he finds it incredibly frustrating that he is suddenly incapable of defining his own crass desires. The lack of usable language is infuriating.

He needs to find out, however. That much is certain. He needs to understand what these things are, and once understanding that he will understand the look John had given him just before he had walked away. Clearly a reaction to something he had seen on Sherlock's own face. Not betrayal. Fear? That, but something more, too. Fear of a specific thing, twisted with grief and disappointment. But that doesn't make sense to Sherlock. What was it about his foot in John's lap—what was it about Sherlock's own tentative and disturbingly involuntary reaction to that seemingly simple thing—that had brought these particular thoughts to the forefront of John's mind at that particularly inconvenient time? Is John afraid of feet? Absurd and highly improbable, especially given the way he had determinedly caressed that same foot only moments before. Was he afraid of Sherlock? More likely but equally absurd. 

Sherlock can't parse it. It sits at the front of his mind, something he knows he should understand and yet can't. The information is there, he knows. He simply needs to put it together in the right order.

He realises that he is still half inclined on the sofa, still staring frozen at the empty door frame. The television is mechanically droning into the flat. The light of it flickers the room into periods of dark and bright that are oddly calming in their unpredictability. Sherlock leaves it on, merely mutes the volume so that only the nearly imperceptible hum of its circuitry is audible. Then lying back on the sofa, he steeples his fingers carefully under his nose and closes his eyes to think.

 


	21. Twenty-One

John sleeps. At least he figures he must because he wakes up to a still dark room with his heart pounding and his sheets soaked in sweat. He doesn't remember the dream. He doesn't need to. Doesn't want to. His lungs contracting around empty space is enough, his mouth gaping as he struggles to pull in oxygen of which the room is suddenly devoid. His face is wet and it is with more than sweat.

He hates this. He hates himself. He hates that this is what he is now. This is all he'll ever be.

It takes a long time for him to calm down, longer before he is able to drag himself from the damp sheets, reaching for his phone as he does so. He squints against the screen, abruptly bright. Four thirty. He sits on the edge of the bed and considers changing the sheets but he doesn't have the energy. He considers the sofa but all he can think of is Sherlock walking into the sitting room and finding him there in the morning and knowing instantly what had happened. Every cell of his body shies away from that. Every instinct freezes in panic at the thought. He thinks of the night before. Hours before. Bare hours. He thinks of that foot, far too hot, pressing against him. He thinks of wanting. He thinks of Sherlock's face, wanting and yet not, needing and fearing, John reduced to an experiment that Sherlock hasn't yet managed to test.

He groans, his head falling into his hands and he scrubs roughly at his face. It's too early for this. Or too late. He stands up and gets dressed.

The stairs are in complete darkness, the first floor hall a dim suggestion of comparative light. He feels his way carefully down, his eyes adjusting as he goes. He passes the sitting room and the kitchen without pause and counts the steps down to the ground floor where the front door is a blacker hole in the darkness. He flips the deadbolt and opens the door and steps out into the coming morning.

The world is grey. The sky to the east a deep velvet blue that bleeds into the darker navy of the west where the night is still settled, as yet unrouted from its increasingly precarious position. John locks the door behind him and walks towards it.

It is a strange time to be abroad. That cusp between London's night and London's day, two worlds momentarily intersecting, a deep breath in which the two sides are forced to cohabit in a brief space of carefully avoided eye contact and the unconscious tension of shoulders unwillingly brushing on the pavement.

John walks until the night is vanquished from the west and the sky is blue and clear and half of London has vanished back underground. The streets fill up with business suits and brief cases and bikes. Buses begin to roar in earnest. The smell of coffee pervades the atmosphere, blending in with exhaust and cigarette smoke, aftershave and perfume. London is awake. But London is always awake.

He keeps walking and he doesn't stop until the streets become nearly impassable, the pavement too difficult to navigate without attention and he stops abruptly, earning several curses as the crowd is forced to part around him. He looks around, blinking. Has no idea where he is a for a moment, until he suddenly spots a familiar corner, a familiar park. He sees the Criterion and has no idea if he wants to smile or scowl, because how could he have known, that day? How could he have known he would be back here, in the same place, everything changed and nothing?

Is this chance? Did he know where he was going this whole time, his feet making their own unconscious decisions? He shrugs and pushes inside the cafe, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't change a thing. Nothing has changed at all.

 


	22. Twenty-Two

It's four thirty-eight when Sherlock hears John's door crack open at the top of the stairs. He is still on the sofa, but the television has been changed for John's laptop and Sherlock silently presses it shut as he hears that first creak above him. It's still dark outside but not for much longer. He waits, unmoving, and listens to John walking on nearly silent feet past the landing, and twelve seconds later the latch of the front door disengaging and once more clicking shut. He hears the metallic clunk of a key turning the lock home and then silence. Nothing. John is gone.

He is up and off the sofa in an instant, his whole frame unfolding like a spring, and he is up the stairs two at a time without even waiting for the requisite pause to see if John will return, some last minute item forgotten. He's not entirely sure what he's expecting to find. He is equally certain what he's dreading, and the fact that those are two entirely separate thoughts makes him raise a puzzled eyebrow at his own mental wanderings. Expectation is a matter of logical deduction. Desire, dread....these are _emotions_. _Feelings. Sentiment._ He doesn't trust them and their sudden advent into his thoughts. But he suspects it's too late for that. He remembers the pulse of _something_ in that first moment in the lab at St Bart's. The heartbeat he had stifled and quickly ignored. So easy it had been to ignore it, too. Credit it as an anomaly and nothing more. Perhaps he should have listened to it, inspected and analysed it instead. Perhaps then he would have been prepared for when the single heartbeat had suddenly multiplied and somewhere along the way the physical sensation of breathlessness had manifested as something else, something less logical, something far more difficult to pin down and define. He is looking for words, for some label to pin to it, but there is nothing in his archive but some hazy shadow that had once belonged to Victor Trevor, ages ago, long before they had stopped being friends and instead become competitors, become something else. How old had he been, anyway? Twelve? At the most. Not that it matters. The entire line of thought is insignificant because that hazy wisp of _something_ had never equalled the heavy London fog that John Watson seems to have brought with him.

But Sherlock is unwilling to deal with it at the moment. There are more important things, so he thrusts it behind the door marked _John_ and shuts it quickly before it tries to escape. _Dread. Fear. Hope._ He doesn't know what to do with them now, what they signify, so he pushes them away to sort out later. The wood of John's bedroom door is against his palm and this...this is important. Just this _fact_ of what he will find on the other side. What he feels about it makes no difference whatsoever.

He is expecting it to be empty. The bed firmly made, the wardrobe gaping wide, the drawers tucked neatly into place and voided of their contents. He is expecting this. _Dread,_ hidden behind the locked door of the room marked _John,_ is seeping out and clouding the corridors with its haze.

But the first thing he sees is the bed, rumpled and wrecked, the corners of the fitted sheet torn from the mattress, the pillows pummelled and tossed aside, the blankets twisted and kicked into a ball at the foot end. He smells—faintly—sweat, a salty humid tang on the air. Unmistakable. _Nightmare._

He knows, immediately, that this should have been his first suspicion when hearing John skulk out at four thirty in the morning. This should have been his first deduction. And he realises that _dread, hope, fear—_ so pervasive in the corridors of his mind since the moment he had first heard John's door at the top of the stairs—have abruptly dissipated. They leave confusion in their wake, uncertainty, but he understands these things far better and can work with them.

He turns around and goes back downstairs, flipping the light switch for the hall. It flickers and comes on, illuminating the darkness with its dim, yellow light. He is aware of a sense of purpose. He doesn't understand everything yet but there are clues to follow, deductions still to make. He knows where to find them, where they lead from.

He goes to the sofa where John's laptop is still warm on the seat cushion, and flinging himself down, he flips the top open and waits for it to come to life. It does with a warm hum and a growing heat against his thighs. The password screen comes up and he types it in unhesitatingly: _jAmE5._ It's endearing. John's attempt at cleverness, and it makes Sherlock smile.

The desktop appears, a generic photograph of red sand dunes never changed from its factory setting. Sherlock goes unerringly for the yellow graphic of the file folder in the bottom left corner, the one he's already opened before, that he hadn't even thought to peruse with any detail, its contents relegated as _boring._ It's not anymore. Now— _now—_ it is the most fascinating thing Sherlock could ever hope to discover.

_James._


	23. Interlude

James,

How are you? I feel trite asking that but....how are you?

Haven't heard from you in a week now. You're alive, I know that, because Murray just got shipped out to us, said he saw you in hospital. You were walking around. I'm glad. I know there are more important things than walking but....I'm glad.

I miss talking to you. Or. Well. As close to talking to you as filthy notes scratched on scraps of paper and the odd email constitutes “talk.” But whatever it is, I miss it. I know that's selfish right now. You're probably wishing the world to hell. I'm sorry. That's so useless. But I am. I'm sorry. I want you to know that whatever else, you're loved. Whatever the world says, I know who you are. We all do. Don't let this beat you down. I'm here. Always. I am always, always here. I love you.

 

John

 

* * * * *

 

James,

Sent you an email last week. Just wondering if you got it. Did you get it? Sorry. If you did. I don't mean to be a pain.

Things are quiet here. Hot. Dusty. Nothing out of the ordinary. Enough goings on to keep me busy, but we haven't lost a man in three weeks now and this is probably pessimistic of me but I'm just waiting for the world to drop down and destroy us.

Are you well? Sorry. Maybe you want to forget it. I'm not helping, I know. Just...I miss you. Still. Always.

Love you.

 

John

 

* * * * *

 

John,

Been busy, sorry. Therapy. You know how it is. Saw Murray. Told him to say hi. He's looking good. Glad no permanent damage was done. Tell him I say hi. I'm fine. Don't worry about me.

 

James

 

* * * * *

 

James,

Thank you for writing. Are you okay? Sorry, you said you were. Just. You would tell me. Right? You tell me everything. I know things are difficult. I know this can't be easy but. Please tell me. Talk to me. You tell me everything, James. I thought...

I love you. So much. I can't change anything but I can listen. I'm here. I can try to help. Let me help you, love.

 

John

 

* * * * *

 

John,

You can't help. Please leave me alone.

 

James

 

* * * * *

 

James,

If you change your mind. I'm here. I'm always here.

 

John

 

* * * * *

 

James,

I don't know if you heard what happened. It's been...Jesus Christ. Weeks. I feel...I don't know. I miss you. I miss you so much. You loved me once, I know. Maybe I'm just desperate. I don't...I don't have anyone else I can tell this to. Harry, of course. I wrote to her. Haven't heard back though. I feel like I should tell someone though and you're the closest thing to a family I have now.

I was shot. God. Not long after your last letter, actually. Remember how I was afraid of the sky falling in? Well, it did. Don't you love being right? Night raid on the base. Fire. God. Everywhere. Blood. I still wake up. It's hard to sleep. I don't mean to complain. It's. Well. It's part of the risk, right? It's what we sign up for? I just. I wasn't ready. Can you be ready for that sort of thing?

I feel like the most selfish git imaginable complaining about this to you of all people. You've been through...so much more. So much worse. I'm sorry. I just. I'm alone and it's....it's more than I can handle sometimes. And I think of you being alone, all these weeks. I used to be there for you. I used to do some good. And it kills me to think that I could have done something. Been something. And wasn't. Because...I don't know. Was it my fault? Was it something I did? Something I said? Some small way in which I failed you? God, I miss you. I miss you so much. Everything hurts. I didn't think it was possible to hurt this much and still be alive.

I love you. I will always love you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Maybe you don't want to hear that. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

 

John

 

* * * * *

 

John,

I thought to make it easy on both of us. Letting it slide away. It could have been easy. It's been weeks, as you say. I'm sorry to hear of your injury. I did hear of it. And no, I didn't write. I thought it would be better that way. But nothing that is worthwhile is meant to be that easy, is it. And you are worthwhile, John. You are worthy. I thought I could make this easier on both of us but I realise that that's not fair to you.

I thought I loved you. I thought I knew what love was. There were days when your face was the only thing that mattered. Your grubby letters in your atrocious hand meant everything. I know you only signed up because of me. You never said it but...I knew it, John. I know you. You're such a romantic. Such a fool. But it was okay because I loved you back. It would be right. It would be good. There were days when the thought of seeing your face again was the only thing that mattered. It was my world. You were my world.

But now my world has changed and you can't be in it anymore. You have always been my friend. You will always be my friend. But I can't give you what you need. I could, once. But now...things change. And I can't be anything but what I am now—a man who has found Hell. And you are too good for Hell, my John. You are too good for what I have become.

Please don't write to me again. Not now. Not for a while. Maybe some day, when we're both less raw. When you've found someone who can be worth everything that you are. But I'm not that man. I don't know if I ever was.

Goodbye.

 

James

 


	24. Twenty-Four

At eleven in the morning, John finally goes home. He's exhausted, a familiar aching thing, engrained in the marrow of his bones, numbing and painful at the same time. He knows this feeling, has had it twisted around every breath and heartbeat for months now, its fingers clinging to every muscle and joint, its breath clouding over his ears and making it difficult to hear around it, echoing through his brain with its silence, with its cold. He hadn't realised it had gone at all until suddenly it was back again, crowding against him and not letting go. He's tired. He's so tired.

He takes the tube. Wishes he could afford a taxi but he remembers Billy. He hasn't seen the cat since it ran away and despite Sherlock's assurances he is still worried. He wants to see the cat for himself. He realises, oddly, that he misses it. The sense of serenity he had gathered from its vibrating presence. He realises, even more oddly, that Billy was a large part of chasing that exhaustion away in the first place.

Morning rush hour is over and he makes it back to Baker Street with as little fuss as is possible on the London tube on a weekday. He walks the few short blocks home and as he turns onto the corner he can already hear the first faint strains of a violin beautifully played. Sibelius. He knows that by now. He wonders if Sherlock has a special fondness for that composer. The song is familiar and he recognises it as one that Sherlock has played often in the few days since John has moved in. He smiles, without being much aware of it, and by the time he reaches the door, unlocking it with his key, his face has lost some of its defeat.

The seventeen steps up to the flat leave him breathless, but with every step the music intensifies. He is aware of the warm bitter tang of coffee freshly brewed overlaying the heady scent of bacon. He is dimly aware that he is hungry but it's a far off feeling. He's panting by the time he reaches the top landing and he has to stop, bent nearly over and gasping. He needs to sleep and he needs food but all he can really think about is his bed and the possibility of Billy curled up at his head, purring him into oblivion. He thinks of the pills in his bedside drawer, never opened, but tempting. So tempting. Every time he lies awake at night, fires exploding behind his eyes, he thinks how simple they would make everything.

The music stops, fading into a wavering note that lingers for a moment before sliding off into silence. He looks up and meets Sherlock's gaze, staring at him from in front of the window, a slightly wary cast to his face.

John flushes, straightening immediately. His heart is pounding and he is hot with humiliation, that he should be seen like this. He feels like every thought is branded across his face for Sherlock to read and he turns abruptly towards the stairs leading to his room but Sherlock's voice stops him, a vaguely panicked note lending it alarm, and John's reaction to it is almost involuntary.

He turns back around, stepping into the sitting room, prepared to defend himself, to deny himself, to shout, to rage. He is clinging to that anger, that impatience, entering the room with a snarl on his mouth and doing so he sees the table clearly. The papers and random ends of Sherlock's random life have been shoved aside, piled on one end to leave the other end free for the burden of two set places, a pot of coffee, a plate of bacon, four eggs, and a rack of toast, only slightly burnt.

And just like that the anger is gone. Rage and defensiveness syphoning off like so much waste. John raises an eyebrow and looks at Sherlock who is himself looking self-conscious, a slight flush mounting his pale cheeks.

“What's this?” John asks.

Self-consciousness is gone in an instant. The detective rolls his eyes and says in exasperation, “Really, John. Not even you could fail to recognise breakfast when it's presented to you.”

John stifles a sigh and schools himself to patience. “I mean.” He takes a breath. Frowns. “Why?”

Sherlock looks confounded by the question. He makes a wide, meaningless gesture with his hands that takes in the breakfast table, the flat, John. “It's breakfast time,” he says.

John glances at his watch. Nearly noon. “No. It's not.”

Sherlock scowls. “Does it matter?” he snaps. “If you don't want it, fine. I wasn't hungry anyway.”

Sherlock turns away with a dramatic flap of his dressing gown and the violin is raised once more to his shoulder. His entire back is tense and angry and when he raises his bow to the strings it is nothing like Sibelius. It's nothing like any kind of music John's ever heard, a grating, whining _noise_ that has John cringing and blocking his ears.

He feels immediate remorse. Knows without doubt that he screwed this up. That there were any number of ways to deal with this situation and he chose the worst possible one.

Taking his hands from his ears, he goes to the table and picks up the coffee pot, hot and fragrant, and he pours two cups, adding sugar to one of them and stirring it in, the sound of the spoon hitting the side of the cup utterly drowned by the cacophony of Sherlock's playing. He picks up the cup with sugar and with a steeling that requires more effort than he expects, he walks to the window where Sherlock's back is turned, the bow working furiously at the abused strings.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't touch him. He walks around him, putting himself in Sherlock's line of sight, and only when he sees the stormy eyes narrow and those fine nostrils flare does he deliberately hold out the cup.

There is a moment when John doesn't think it will work, that it's too late, that he's missed his chance to deflect this. But after several more musicless strokes on the instrument the bow falls abruptly to Sherlock's side and the silence that suddenly engulfs the flat is a beautiful thing.

They stare at each other, for a moment neither of them even looking at the coffee still outstretched between them. It is Sherlock who looks away first, eyes—green now—flickering down to the cup. Slowly, he lowers the instrument from his shoulder and leans it carefully against the wall, and cautiously, their fingers not touching, he takes the cup from John's hand.

He doesn't smile. Nor does John. But there is the briefest flickering of consciousness in the glance that is suddenly exchanged before Sherlock once more lowers his eyes. He takes a sip from the steaming cup, tastes carefully, and gives a single approving nod.

“Breakfast looks great,” John says.

“The toast is burnt.”

John nearly smiles then. Nearly. “It looks great.”

 


	25. Twenty-Five

There's not enough sugar in the coffee. It is far too strong and bitter and Sherlock hates it.

Obviously, he drinks it anyway, his face betraying nothing. His eyes studiously avoid the sugar bowl.

John drinks his black and Sherlock makes note of that, another item that he places carefully behind the door marked _John._ The room is becoming crowded. It's latest edition— _coffee, black_ —sitting next to the stack of files placed squarely in the centre of the room— _James._

Those files are pervasive, and Sherlock finds that since placing them in there, mere hours ago, the room has somehow shifted from smoky blue to sullen grey. It permeates everything like a dense fog that won't be blown away. Sherlock hates it. He wants to change it back.

He sits at a right angle from John and watches him slowly eat. Every bite a struggle at first, the chewing deliberate, every swallow taking effort. His face, ordinarily so expressive, is carefully blank, and Sherlock watches as slowly, gradually, every bite becomes easier, every swallow almost eager. And as the food slowly disappears off John's plate, so too does the blankness slowly vanish. By the time the first round of bacon and toast is gone, John's hunger is sincere and almost ravishing, and it's not until two more slices of charred toast, another egg, and three more rashers of bacon have been consumed that John finally stops, leaning back in his chair with a slightly puzzled look on his face, as if confused by his own sudden hunger.

Not for a moment does Sherlock let it be seen that he is watching him. He recognised that sudden defensive anger when John had first arrived for what it was. Humiliation at his weakness, at being caught out in it. Like an animal protecting itself from a predator.

Sherlock watches John out of the corner of his eye and thinks of a soldier who joined for love. A doctor destroyed in battle. John Watson is a mess of contradictions and Sherlock finds himself fascinated by them. He wants to tease them out, make sense of them. Rearrange them into a logical pattern. But he is beginning to suspect that logic has very little to do with it and he's not sure if that pleases him or frustrates him.

“You're staring at me.”

Sherlock jumps at the sudden intrusion that John's voice creates on his thoughts. _Shit. He is._ “No I'm not.”

John gives him a level look, but it only lasts a second and Sherlock can see the smirk at the corner of his mouth and John's furious attempt to stifle it.

“You're fucking grinning,” John says.

 _Shit. He is._ “Don't be ridiculous.”

This is getting out of hand.

He rises, leaving his half-finished coffee behind. His dressing gown swirls behind him as he spins away from the table, going directly to the Persian slipper where he keeps his cigarettes. He can feel John's gaze on him as he goes, but when he turns back around, cigarette in hand, trying to remember where he put the matches, John has looked away, staring at the coffee cup he holds clutched between his hands. He looks.... _sad._

“So,” Sherlock says awkwardly. “Breakfast was okay?”

John's head comes up and the sadness is still there but there's a softness, too, a relenting in the lines of his face, the vaguest suggestion in the upturn of his eyes.

“Yeah,” John says, and there is something so intimate in the way he says it, a warmth to his tone that leaves Sherlock feeling oddly shaken. “Yeah. Breakfast was....good. I don't know what brought it on, but. Thank you. Sherlock.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes, looking for the trick, for the sudden turn of anger, for some subtle mockery, but John just keeps looking at him with that softness in his eyes like he understands, like he knows what Sherlock is looking for and is challenging him to find it. He doesn't.

So he nods, clears his throat, glances away from that gaze that is suddenly too much for him to maintain. “You're welcome.”

There is a moment, seconds, heartbeats. Sherlock counts them by the rush of blood in his ears. _One. Two. Three. Four—_

On the fourth John rises, his chair scraping back against the hardwood flooring. He puts down his coffee cup, picks up Sherlock's, walks to where Sherlock is standing, unlit cigarette in hand, and holds it out to him.

“Here, you didn't finish your coffee. I'm going to sleep for a bit. I...I had trouble. Last night.” He clears his throat. His face is red and his expression awkward, utterly self conscious.

Sherlock stares at the cup in John's hand. Takes it. “Thank you.”

John is still standing there, still looking awkward. Sherlock watches him. The coffee is nearly cold now and there's not enough sugar in it. He sips at it anyway and doesn't even grimace.

“Listen,” John says, and Sherlock stares at him, listening, waiting. “I know...I know you're angry about...about Billy. I just. If you're keeping him away from me. I understand. I just. You don't have to. I won't do anything again without your permission. Not unless he's very sick. Unless he needs it. I...I want you to know. You don't have to hide him away from me. I'm sorry, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stares at this man, this extraordinarily ordinary man, and he is utterly fascinated. He doesn't quite understand why but he wishes he did. He wishes he could pick apart this strange sense of captivation, dissect it and turn it over and see it from all sides, in all states. He wants to grab John Watson and pull him to pieces beneath his hands and discover what beats at the centre of him, if there is something there that is different from every other human being in the world.

But he doesn't, of course. He wants to. He takes another sip of coffee and the porcelain clatters against his teeth and he realises that his hands are shaking. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't trust what might come out of his mouth, so he just looks at John Watson and sips the horrible coffee that he made.

John doesn't wait long for a response. In a moment he turns, gives a small military nod that Sherlock's already come to recognise, and walks from the room. Sherlock listens to his footfalls on the stairs, the slight creak of the door, and then silence. The sound of the door closing doesn't come.

He puts the cigarette down, unlit, tucking it between the teeth of the skull, then sits down in his black leather chair and waits.

He listens to the small sounds of movement from above, the sound of feet creaking on the old ceiling. It takes four minutes for it to go quiet, for John to get into his bed, and as soon as he does Sherlock is out of his chair and by the time he reaches the bottom step he is fourteen inches high and covered in fur.


	26. Twenty-Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for how long this took. All I've been doing is arguing about John, writing porn, and RPing. Honestly, what even is my life.

It is still light when John finally wakes. The heavy gold caught in the gauze folds of the curtain suggests early evening but he doesn't reach for his phone to check. Just lays there instead, the sheets smooth over his legs, exactly where they had been when he'd fallen asleep hours before.

He is rested, content. _Happy._ Cautiously so, at any rate. He thinks of breakfast. He thinks of Sherlock, eyes wide and unbelievably blue and flickering away from a gaze that is too much to handle. He thinks of long pale hands shaking, a cold cup of coffee being held to full lips and swallowed without complaint. He thinks of Sherlock's first sip of that cup, the initial distaste at the bitterness— _not enough sugar—_ and the swift and careful schooling of features, the nod of approval. John had been moments away from offering to put more sugar in, but something about the way Sherlock had glanced at him, the eager determination to please, had stayed his hand and he had spent the whole meal carefully watching the too bitter coffee disappear in tiny, reluctant increments. And at the end, when the tail end of the luke warm brew—swimming with stray grounds at the bottom of the cup—might have offered some excuse of garnering a fresh cup, how Sherlock had taken it and drank it and John had stood there and watched him swallow it down instead.

John finds he is grinning now, and the stretch and flex of muscles so rarely given rein reminds him immediately of the last time he had used them: sitting over Chinese after John had shot a man through two panes of glass. Days ago. Lifetimes ago. It doesn't seem real. He is almost breathless with how quickly everything changes where Sherlock is concerned. That brief first day and night of laughter and adrenaline, of realising how hungry he was for the first time in months, hungry for more than food, surprised at his own automatic reactions to instincts he had been convinced he would never feel again.

And then how quickly it had all gone away again, the triumph, the beginning edges of the safety net he was rebuilding beneath him, crumbling at the first touch and leaving him unable to breathe, its ruins floating down around him as he lay paralysed on the ground.

And now, again, this slow tide of something deeper that bears as little resemblance to that first night of wild joy as it does to last night's bleak depression. It is...surer. But also more uncertain. Some tentative thing that John is terrified to touch. Not because it is brittle, too easily cracked like that first frantic night had been, but because he knows that if he touches it too soon, too roughly, it will fold in around his searching fingers and cling there, destroyed but utterly unable to fall away, a ruin of something branded to him—another James, clinging feebly to a hope that had never been strong enough to brave the dark places of that war.

John still sees him, at night, the image of blue eyes the colour of a frozen lake but warm, so much warmer than Sherlock's cold inquisitive gaze. He can still feel the texture of coarse blonde hair between his fingers, the gentleness of that smile only inches away, thin lips impossibly soft against his own. John sees it still, can feel it if he closes his eyes and concentrates hard enough, but the remembrance is a softer thing than the jagged pain it used to be. He is starting...not to forget, but the memories are being worn down, their edges polished away from overuse. It is a relief, but also a disappointment, because it wasn't very long ago—a year, a little bit less—that he had been convinced that James was forever. And the pain of that is still there, rushing along next to the blood in his veins, woven in with the general hollowness of what he is now, part of the foundation and therefore unavoidable and inextricable, impossible to disentangle from the thing he has become.

He doesn't know what will happen should he ever forget, should that pain be removed. Will he crumble? Some base part of him no longer able to hold? The entire building folding in on itself and washing gradually away? He doesn't know what's underneath it anymore, if some bright carved ruin will be found underneath, chipped away but ultimately recoverable, a thing of beauty, of life, waiting to be reborn. Or if, when washed away, there will be nothing left, just a hole in the ground with nothing there to cover it.

John doesn't know, and part of him wants to find out, but another part of him is afraid, too. They fight it out in equal measure and John has no idea which one will win. But he has his gun, he has his pills. They're there for him, his comfort, in case one day the desire for discovery wins out and he finds he is left with nothing but that hole after all.

John is no longer grinning to himself but the warmth beside his head is real and reassuring and the memory of breakfast, of unearthly blue eyes trying valiantly to peer inwards and not quite making eye contact, leaves him feeling soft and pliant, and when he hears the sound of the front door slamming, faint but solid, he pushes himself upright and finds, once more, that he is smiling.

 


	27. Twenty-Seven

Sherlock winces at the slam of the door behind him and hopes that it wasn't loud enough to wake John. He had been sleeping when Sherlock had left him, pliant feline muscles stretching and flexing over joints, two hundred and forty-three bones remembering their place. Even as he slunk from the room, every reverberation of John's breath sending vibrations through his sensitive ears, Sherlock had found it oddly difficult to leave him. He had actually wondered if John would be upset to wake up alone. If he would miss Billy. Sherlock remembers the slow soothing slide of John's hand in his fur, fingertips digging into flesh, slowing and then stopping as his breathing deepened and every tense muscle seemed to come apart at once.

Sherlock had watched him sleeping for a long time, trying to discover John's edges, the places he could peel back and peer in, but they were impossible to see, collapsed together and smoothed, and even this was fascinating to Sherlock, this oddly new creature, utterly relaxed, sleeping the sleep of the sated.

This was new. This was different. A John he'd never seen before and Sherlock wonders what it was that had changed. Was it breakfast? Did the mere act of making breakfast for this ordinary man make that much of a difference to him? But Sherlock's noticed already the correlation between John Watson's moods and John Watson's meals. It was more than money that had kept the ex-army doctor from eating, leaving him half-wasted and hovering on the edge of exhaustion, buoyed up solely by the tension in his frame. Food for John Watson meant more than life—it meant purpose. And there were moments when Sherlock believed he had found it again.

And then there were other times like the night before, after his own clumsy attempts at sounding John out, sounding _himself_ out, the disaster that had resulted. _James._ He wonders how much of what John is is due to what James couldn't be.

Now, standing in the evening light of Baker Street, the world hurrying home to their suppers, he wonders what supper to make for John. He doesn't have to, of course. He could always get Chinese—no, not takeaway.

He walks slowly, his mind turned inwards as he looks for that room where he used to keep things like that. He knew once, hadn't he? Surely he had once been capable of making more than bacon and eggs and toast. Or had he? It's all vague, the suggestion of a previous deletion, the scattered remains of a memory kicked in the corner of a room dedicated to a case that had taken place in a restaurant kitchen, all stainless steel and cold worktops. A severed hand in the dessert cooler, hidden inside a pail of clotted cream.

He thinks, somewhere far back in that room, he will find a recipe for scones, so he keeps digging and after several moments comes up triumphant. It's manageable, he thinks, and he veers right at the next corner and heads for the shop.

The ingredients are easy to find and he feels almost virtuous, his basket full of flour and sugar as he waits in line at the checkout. He's running the recipe through his head, the steps to take, imagining the look that John will give him when he comes downstairs, sleep-tousled and warm still, a lazy smile on his expressive face, and Sherlock is so lost in this image that he doesn't even care about the old man ahead of him, stooped and slight, arguing over coupons and coins with the cashier, and he even almost misses his phone chirping out its alert.

He blinks, annoyed with himself and his inattention. He gives the man and the cashier a glare before pulling his mobile out and looking at the screen. A text from John. He does his best to ignore the way his blood seems suddenly too loud in his ears and a hollow thump in his chest makes him briefly breathless.

He selects the message with a finger that is oddly unsteady and stares at the screen.

 

_Home soon? How about Indian?_

 

Sherlock frowns. John isn't supposed to be awake yet. His mental image of a sleep-tousled John waking to the smell of freshly baked scones vanishes and he narrows his eyes at the screen _._ Is this normal? Is this John's reciprocation for breakfast? Is he trying to even the favour so that he doesn't have to feel indebted? It can't be a romantic gesture. The wording suggests he's ordering in and intimacy would demand that John cook something in return, an equal exchange of labour. Sherlock knows this, he's looked all this up.

His frown has turned into a scowl by now and he punches in a response.

 

_Unnecessary. Getting dinner now. -SH_

 

There is a pause. Far too long. Far, _far_ too long.

Sherlock stares at his phone and wonders if it's broken, if something's happened to John. Or has he simply forgotten about their conversation? Gotten distracted? Maybe he's watching the next episode of that terrible show from the night before. Or maybe he just doesn't deem the message worth responding to. Sherlock feels the beginnings of resentment burning in his chest. John should respond. Even Sherlock knows that. He just told him he was getting dinner for them. Surely that warrants some response, for God's sake. Was the man raised in a barn?

There is the sound of a throat clearing and he looks up to find the cashier glaring at him and the long line of people behind him trying to get his attention. He ignores them all, puts his basket on the till and starts unloading the items.

It's only as the cashier has finished ringing them through that he realises that scones and clotted cream probably aren't the most appropriate dinner fare and he feels his annoyance at this whole stupid situation increasing.

He pays anyway because he figures he can give the items to Mrs Hudson, a forward payment on future favours. He practically snatches the bag from the cashier and turns his back on her _have a good night, sir_ because there's no chance of that now. What a bloody stupid thing to have said. A child could have deduced that he's not having a good night.

There is an odd feeling at the pit of his stomach, something heavy and oddly choking which doesn't make sense. It's similar to the first time he had waited at the doors of the Great Hall for Victor Trevor only to have him stride past without a glance, entirely taken up with three other boys who Sherlock recognised as being in Victor's own class, a full year ahead of Sherlock and somehow infinitely taller. He had scowled then, too, finding his way to an empty part of the table, perched on the end, far from where he normally sat where the laughter of the four older boys could be heard all through the hall.

It's not quite the same, but similar. Disappointment and humiliation and anger, deeper this time, though. Perhaps not as all consuming but... _more?_

He practically snarls out loud because words, _words!_ He doesn't _have them_ and it's driving him mad. Surely there is a language for this. If only he could name it he would be able to control it, to fix it, to change it, to cure it. But there's nothing and he's lost, left disappointed and humiliated and angry but so much more because there is actual physical pain in his chest, clawing upwards through his oesophagus and he doesn't know why it's there or where it's coming from or what it will be when it finally reaches the top and emerges.

The bag with the ingredients is swinging wildly at his side, smacking mercilessly against his leg with every stride, and in a fit of rage he thrusts the entire thing into the next bin he sees. He hears the glass jar of clotted cream hit the metal bottom and give a loud crack and he feels instantly better. Angry still, but the pain in his throat is gradually receding until only his chest still aches and he tells himself that it's just a heart attack and has nothing to do with John or scones or Indian food.

He swings into Baker Street, resolved on his course. He will treat John with distant civility. Billy will disappear. He will take his wand and use the _Obliviate_  because it is _right,_ it is _true,_ using this wand on John Watson. It's what it was meant for, short and strong and made of light wood hiding a darker meaning that has nothing to do with the Thestral hair encased neatly in its grain. Yews for death, for funerals, for graveyards and poisons. This wand was meant for John Watson and Sherlock's anger rises to include Ollivander, as well, because surely the man did this on purpose, surely this was part of some plan, some subtle sneaky trick meant to humiliate Sherlock because of his last wand, broken in half and tossed away. Ollivander must have known, must have plotted this all along.

The door shoves open under his hand and he slams it shut behind him. He hopes John does hear it this time and he is halfway up the steps before he realises what he's smelling.

Cumin, ginger, turmeric, cilantro.

Chicken and rice and garam masala and chili pepper.

Sherlock's eyes are already watering and he can hear his stomach give a lurch as whatever was lodged inside it falls away and he is suddenly starving.

He climbs the rest of the stairs one at a time, oddly tense, every muscle in tight control. He is perfectly aware of every inch of his body, every motion, every nerve strung tightly in alert attention. He is three steps from the landing when John appears in the doorway. He is smiling, his eyes creased and warm.

“You're home. Sorry, I meant to text you back but the sauce was burning. I know you said you had dinner but I had already started. I can stick it in the fridge and we can eat it some other time, though.” He stops, his eyes flickering to Sherlock's empty hands and he looks back at Sherlock's face, questioning. “Um. You did say you had already got dinner, yeah?”

Sherlock stares at him. Amazed, incredulous, utterly entranced. He knows he looks like an idiot, utterly dumbstruck in the middle of the stairs but there is a spot of sauce on John's lip and his cheeks are flushed from the heat. Sherlock wants to go to him, wants to lick his lips clean, feel the exact temperature of that reddened skin against his own. It is an instinct that he doesn't understand, not intellectually. What is this man, this incredibly normal man that his entire mind seems to be tuned towards, that his entire body wants to betray him for. He doesn't understand. Doesn't have the words. He stares at John and doesn't speak.

“Sherlock?” John is watching him, stepping into the hallway, coming closer. He looks puzzled and then concerned and he is close, so close, his hand coming up, reaching, _touching..._

“I'm fine.”

John's hand stops in midair, barely an inch from Sherlock's arm, below the shoulder, above the elbow. Safe. Absolutely safe.

“I'm fine,” Sherlock repeats. “I'm absolutely fine.”

John is staring at him, his brow creased uncertainly, the lines around his mouth giving expression to his mobile face—confusion, concern, and the slightest edge of knowing amusement.

And it is this last which works to nudge Sherlock back to himself and he straightens, both mentally and physically, smoothing out the wrinkles and shedding light on the shadowed folds underneath.

“Dinner didn't work out,” he says, and he sounds like himself. Right? That was normal, wasn't it?

“Oh,” John says and there is something in his expression that is secretly pleased, the slightest hint that the flush, perhaps, is not solely due to the heat of the stove. “Alright. Well. I'm not a great cook. Harry taught me this recipe. An ex-girlfriend of hers is a chef. I hope you like it. I wanted to...well, this morning. You made breakfast. Just thought I could make dinner.”

And there's that look again, wide-eyed and hopeful and the slightest bit sad and Sherlock can feel himself responding, every cell in his body arcing towards this man and he has to grab the handrail beside him to keep from falling forwards.

“That's fine,” he says and is impressed at how steady his voice is. “I'm sure it's fine.”

And John's smile, bashful, beaming, is utterly out of proportion to this response and Sherlock doesn't even realise until it's too late that he's smiling just as widely right back.


	28. Twenty-Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Errr...changing the rating cuz it seems things are hotting up.

The food is good. John will never be a great cook, but he manages and this recipe is one of his favourites. Sherlock is eating with vigour, no hint of that quickly hidden distaste, the tentative reluctance that had come with the too-bitter coffee. He is shovelling the rice, the chicken drowned in its spicy sauce, into his mouth as though he hasn't eaten in a week, and John reflects that this is entirely plausible. He had had nothing but a slice of toast that morning, the food apparently laid out in its abundance solely for John's delectation, the significance of which was not lost on John. He is watching Sherlock now, though, and there is none of that hesitation, that resignation that had been there that morning, and John wonders if it's the food or if it's the fact that John has made it that is making the difference. Either way, it's difficult for John to keep the small smile from his face. They are sitting in the same places as they were earlier, at right angles to each other. John's hand is settled palm down on the table between them.

They are silent and while it's not a comfortable silence exactly, it isn't strictly an uncomfortable one, either. There is a tension running between them, but it is the tension of expectation. The consciousness of those inches that separate them from their corners of the table. Beneath the table Sherlock shifts his foot and John feels it, bumping gracelessly against his and the contact is so accidental that they both jump, eyes flashing guiltily to each other, and John has to physically restrain himself from apologising.

He turns back to his food but he can still feel the place where Sherlock's socked foot had made contact with his leg and it's distracting. It's actually distracting. He wants to touch it, smooth it down, look to see if there's some visibly lasting imprint against his skin. But it's absurd, he knows it is. He keeps eating, concentrating on the movement of his fork, from plate to mouth, mouth to plate, and he's not sure but he thinks his right hand has moved on the table, an inch closer to Sherlock's side, but he doesn't remember doing it and he feels guilty about it and incredibly foolish.

He's going to take his hand off the table. He feels like an idiot. Sherlock is silent and eating, concentrating fiercely on the plate in front of him. There is no sign from him, not really. John wonders if he imagined this. If he's misinterpreting everything. Is that even possible? Well, of course it is. It must be. Because John's an idiot and he's going to take his hand off the table _right now_ except suddenly there is the slightest flash of movement in the corner of John's eye and one long hand—the left—slithers over the edge of the table and settles like a cat five inches from John's own.

John doesn't look at it, but there is a moment in which his fork is suspended half way to his mouth and he is staring agape at some point in the middle distance, trying with everything in him not to stare.

It is obvious and conspicuous and John has no idea what to do.

One long white finger twitches, an involuntary movement, and John almost physically startles out of his trance. Half of the rice on his fork falls onto the table and the chicken, incompletely speared, falls into his lap, leaving a long trail of sauce down his shirt.

“Shit,” he says, and immediately drops his fork.

Sherlock glances at him and the studied disinterest of his expression fails utterly. “Okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. Fine. Sorry. Uh. Clumsy.”

“Clearly,” the detective says, watching as John does his best to scrub the sauce from his shirt, plucking the chicken awkwardly from his lap, and as he does, pushed away from the table as he is, he actually _sees_ the way Sherlock's foot, like some swimmer taking a dive into freezing water, suddenly plunges towards his own and he sees the contact as well as feels it and is only grateful that Sherlock isn't wearing shoes.

“Ow! Jesus, Sherlock!”

“Shit, sorry. Sorry. It was—cramp. Twitch. Just a cramp. Um.”

The silence that follows this is made up entirely of awkwardness. John, after bending over to pick up his fork, has all but stopped eating and is aware that Sherlock's own fork has become oddly weighted, hanging almost irresolute between the two targets of plate and mouth. The two of them sit there perpendicular from each other pretending to eat while the food on their plates grows cold.

John also has to use to loo. He catches himself wondering how long he can hold it for and it's this that makes him realise how ridiculous he's being. He takes a deep breath, silent, but he knows that Sherlock is utterly aware of it because he suddenly freezes, his whole body going suddenly tense, and inch by careful inch, John slowly slides his right foot across the floor.

He's never done this before. It's completely awkward. He understands how Sherlock came to kick him because he's feeling around under the table with his socked foot and he is finding nothing but empty floor and he wonders if Sherlock is doing this on purpose. He's actively kicking his foot about now, his whole leg whirling aimlessly in the air and he's frowning because he's getting frustrated because who thought of this, anyway? Who first did this and decided that here was a good idea, let's all use this now as a method of indicating sexual interest, because now he doesn't know if he imagined all this or if Sherlock has spontaneously lost both his legs. With a frustrated huff he gives one last kick and his socked foot comes into contact with the wooden spindle of the chair and he swears he just broke a toe because _Jesus Christ that fucking hurts._

“John? Are you okay?” Sherlock is looking positively alarmed, possibly at the howl of pain that John has just let loose, and John, gritting his teeth and gripping the edge of the table, gives a nod and tries to smile.

“Perfect,” he says.

“You dropped your fork again.”

“Fine.”

“I'll get it.”

“No, that's fi—”

But Sherlock's already ducked out of his chair and is crawling on the floor beneath the table and John hears the clatter of stainless steel against floorboards before the sudden pressure of a hand against his thigh nearly stops his heart.

“Found it,” Sherlock says, voice coming from between John's legs, and John prays to every God he's ever heard of that he gets up right now because that is not a place he can handle Sherlock being right now if he wants to avoid embarrassing them both.

“Sherlock.”

“Yes, John?” The hand is moving, an almost worshipful caress that slides up from his knee, tracing an inexorable path towards his hip, circling around so that the fingers are reaching inwards, reaching upwards, and _oh God what is he doing?_

“Sherlock!”

The hand stops abruptly.

“John?”

“Um.” He has no idea what to say.

_You're giving me an incredibly obvious erection. Do you think you could stop that before I ask you suck my cock, please?_

“Please stop.”

There is a pause. “Oh.”

There is a world of hurt in that single syllable.

“No, I mean—”

But Sherlock is already moving away, getting up. He stands, tosses John's fork on the table at his side, his face shuttered down and John is cursing everything he knows because _bloody hell, why does this need to be so difficult?_

“Sherlock!”

He rises from his chair without thinking and the abrupt release of his name makes Sherlock pause long enough to glance back, only to suddenly stop and look closer and John watches those blue eyes fall on the obvious tent in the fabric of John's trousers and the obscene cerulean slants suddenly widen and John can practically see them change colour.

_Shit._

“Sherlock, we should talk.”

“I disagree.”

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock is coming closer and John can feel his heart speeding up. He is hot and flushed and something in him is fluttering with both panic and anticipation. The look on Sherlock's face, curious and predatory, causes John to back up until he is hitting the back of the chair and stumbling, catching himself on the table.

“Sherlock—”

“John.”

“Could you—could you just—stop? For a second? Just—hold on, yeah? Sherlock. Sherlock?”

And he does stop. Six inches away and looming over John with too-dark eyes far too close, far too intent.

“Sherlock. We _need to talk.”_

“Yes. Later. I want to see first.”

“See...?”

But Sherlock's hands are already coming towards him and _oh God yes_ but _no no no no no_ because _oh God_ he doesn't know this man, he doesn't know anything about him, except that his hand is warm and large and it's _right there_ and _oh fuck it just go with it, Watson_ because _oh fuck you can talk later, right?_ They can talk later because right now _oh my God_ he can already feel the heat from that palm, the first suggestion of pressure, of long fingers sliding to his belt and—

“Sherlock?”

They freeze. Both of them. Because that wasn't John who said that.

Sherlock's back is to the door, but John, his face inches away, feels the way Sherlock's entire body tenses up, the way his expression freezes over and shuts down, right before those eyes flash an angry green, flat and matte and mottled with gold. And it is dangerous and actually a bit frightening and John wishes it wasn't turning him on even more, because standing in the doorway there is a tall man with long black hair and olive skin, a face chiseled from some kind of smooth and flawless stone and probably modelled off a statue of Alexander the Great. He is watching them with dark eyes narrowed in amused disbelief and John instantly dislikes him, and he doesn't know if it's because of the way he's entered the room and suddenly taken it effortlessly over, or if it's the deep wine-colour robes that fall from his shoulders and all the way to the floor making him look like some king stepped out of a story.

“Sherlock Holmes? Have I come at a bad time?” the man says with a slight smirk and even that is attractive, his voice smooth and low and John just knows that if the man had decided right then and there to start singing it would come out soft and flawless and heartbreaking and he hates him even more.

“Sherlock?” John says, whispers really, because he is inches away from Sherlock's ear and his own voice sounds high-pitched and ridiculous against this stranger's beautiful baritone.

But Sherlock doesn't hear him. Those dangerous eyes don't even focus on him. They are staring at some point in the air beside John's left ear and his own voice, when he speaks, is laden with intent.

“Victor Trevor,” he says, and everything in John's world stops.

 


	29. Twenty-Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't even think of this, but someone pointed out to me I should have a trigger warning on this and I apologise for not having done it before.
> 
> So trigger warning for this chapter: mention and partial description of past sexual assault.

No. No. No no no nonononononono. _No._

This isn't fair. This isn't happening. What is he doing here? _What is he doing here?_ Sherlock's entire body is giving off an alarm, shrill and insistent inside his head.

“Victor Trevor.”

“Oh. You remember me? How flattering.”

Deliberately provoking. The idea of Sherlock forgetting Victor is absurd, as they are both aware.

“It's the scent you use,” Sherlock says. “Laying it on a bit thick. Something to hide, Victor?”

He can almost hear Victor's smirk.

“You always were very... _sensitive.”_

In front of him, inches away, John takes a step back.

No no no no _no._ Don't leave me, _don't leave me._

“John—”

“I'll just let you two catch up, yeah?”

John's face is shuttered and quiet but Sherlock can still see the edges of the deep flush that had overtaken it moments before. Fading, fading quickly. Sherlock almost reaches out to grab him, keep him there, but he sees the tension in John's frame and knows that it has nothing to do with the nervous anticipation from before, the tension that had spoken of a firm need to fall forwards and hold back. This is simpler, and far less friendly. There is humiliation in John's face, and hurt.

Sherlock wants to wipe it away. Wants to take that face between his palms, measure its length against his fingers. He wants to feel the imperfections on his fingertips and trace each one to store away in the room called _John._ Already he is frantically stowing things there: the blue of his eyes; the darkness of his pupils fully dilated; the breathlessness of desire against his parted, panting lips. Sherlock wants to taste him, to touch him, more than he's ever wanted anything, and in a man who is constantly changing, getting older, forming new calluses, new wounds, it is a project that Sherlock can't see the end of and he wants to get started because he's terrified all of a sudden that he's running out of time.

“John—”

“It's fine, Sherlock. You're old...friends. Or something. I should probably—”

“Stay. There's nothing—Victor is leaving.” _He has to leave. He has to leave. He can't be here. He can't._

“No, no. I think I'll stay for a bit. I came for a visit with an old friend, after all.”

Victor's voice, smooth and pointed and having absolutely no place in this conversation, no place in this flat, in Sherlock's life, in Sherlock's head. Not anymore. Not for years. But John is already edging away, backed against the table but sliding out from where Sherlock's body is still locking him in and Sherlock doesn't even realise he's reaching out for that vanishing warmth, that strength, until John is suddenly flinching away, his entire body cringing at that outstretched hand.

Sherlock freezes because the pain in his chest is physical and he doesn't know what it is he's supposed to do with it now.

John has escaped, pressed against the edge of the table and he's making for the kitchen now because Victor is standing in the doorway into the sitting room. For the first time Sherlock turns around to look at Victor and he is just in time to see the complicated look that John raises towards him before he is slipping from the room and Sherlock sees him flash past behind Victor's back, making quickly for his bedroom up the stairs.

Victor doesn't even look at John. His gaze is fixed on Sherlock, honey brown eyes amused and filled with a condescension that Sherlock remembers all too well.

Neither of them say a word until the soft sound of John's bedroom door closing reaches them, and then Victor pulls his wand from his sleeve and gives it a wordless wave.

Nothing happens.

Sherlock stares at him, faintly challenging, and the flush that appears on Victor's face is one of anger.

“Is this necessary?”

“Apparently.”

Victor is frowning now, something hard and spiteful on his face. “Living with a Muggle?” Victor says, and the amusement is nowhere to be found. There is nothing but scorn in those finely wrought features and Sherlock hates him with a viciousness he almost doesn't recognise as coming from himself.

“What are you doing here, Victor? Lonely? Looking for old times? I'm busy now.”

“Yes, I can see how busy you are. Really, Sherlock. I always knew you were a bit off, but queer _and_ a Muggle lover? What does Mycroft say?”

Sherlock says nothing. His face is carefully blank but inside he is seething. He forces a shrug. “Tea?”

There is the flash of temper on Victor's face before it is vanquished and the amusement returns. “Oh well, since I'm here.” He moves forward and after an audible sniff he sits in the deep red chair. John's chair. And Sherlock has no idea at what point he started calling it _John's chair_ in his head but it's there, the words leaping involuntarily to his mind. The deep wine red of Victor's robes clash horribly with the faded upholstery and Sherlock feels a brief flash of spite.

“Robes, Victor? A bit careless, even in London.”

The annoyance is back again, lingering this time as Victor shifts in his seat, obviously attempting to get comfortable.

“I was intending to Apparate. I was forced to do so an entire block away from your front door. Your...er...landlady was so obliging to answer my knock, as my Alohomora also failed to garner any results. Incredibly inconvenient. However, I find I must congratulate you on the strength of your wards. Mind if I ask why you feel they are necessary?”

Sherlock stares at him. “I'll have to talk to Mrs Hudson about letting strangers into the house. I'm not nearly so well protected as I had thought.”

Victor flushes. “Really, Sherlock. I know we haven't been friends for a long time now, but _strangers._ Surely even you can't be so paranoid.”

“Not paranoid, Victor. Merely unwelcoming. Why are you here?”

“Are you going to make that tea?”

“No.”

“Rather rude.”

Sherlock doesn't say anything. Goes to the window and picks up his violin, stroking it carefully in the light.

“Still playing, are you? Good. Good focus. Good discipline. Not that you're in want of either. I have to say, I'm surprised at how willing you are to allow this distraction of yours. Or is it for some experiment, this Muggle of yours. I thought you were done with experiments.” He smirks and the rage, the humiliation that Sherlock feels is almost fresh.

“Shut up.”

The sound of Victor's laugh, smooth and deep and firmly placed in Sherlock's memory, fills the sitting room and Sherlock is furious with himself for reacting, for giving him this.

“Who did find you that day, anyway?” Victor asks, a mocking grin disturbing the perfect lines of his face. “I'd always wondered. Was it _very_ embarrassing, Sherlock? All trussed up like that with your pants around your ankles? Your arse cheeks spread wide for the next poor sod who happened to wander in? Really, we were quite gentle, you know. Anyone else could have made that hurt so much more. Who was it, Sherlock? Was it little Harry Potter and Ron Weasley? I always wondered why you had taken such an unaccountable dislike to them after that.”

_“Shut up.”_

“Now, now. Don't take such a pet. It was ages ago, after all. And what do you expect, honestly? Trying what you did. Thinking for even a moment—Really, Sherlock, what were you? Fifth year? I was sixth year, then. You know how much those things matter back then. Age. A whole _year_ apart. Now we're not so different, though, are we? Not so very different at all.”

He is on his feet. Sherlock knows by the way his voice changes, how it's coming closer. He is frozen at the window and the strings of the violin are crushed beneath his grip on its neck.

“It could be fun, you know,” Victor says. “Nothing serious, naturally. No one can know. But think how much fun, Sherlock. You've wanted it for ages. I could tell, the satisfaction you felt when you came to me with your silly little transformation trick. Animagus. Wandless magic. Very impressive. Too good to keep to yourself, really. I know how much you like to show off. And I could find you something at the Ministry. Nothing too important, of course. Even geniuses have to start at the bottom. And things are getting...competitive there. Harry Potter and his Equal Rights nonsense. _Ability Before Ancestry,_ he calls it. Plastered it all over the offices. As if anyone thinks he matters anymore.”

He is close, so close. Three feet away at the most and Sherlock's hand is starting to hurt, the wood and the strings digging into the soft flesh of his palm. He can feel its hard edges against his bones and he wonders which will break first. He is frozen, absolutely frozen, and he wonders if Victor has cast some sort of enchantment except he knows it's impossible, not with the wards he has placed on the flat. And he's close. So close. He can almost feel Victor's breath on his and his entire mind is screaming at him to _just move_ but he can't, he can't, and he wonders if this is what happens. If the next moment will bring Victor's hand on him, Victor's skin, Victor's touch. He is screaming so loudly but it's all in his head and Sherlock...Sherlock...he has no idea what to do.


	30. Thirty

_Victor Trevor. Victor Trevor. Victor Trevor._

John's head is spinning, that name, that face whirring before his eyes. This can't be real. It can't be.

He shuts the door of his room with careful deliberation, constructing a solid barrier between himself and the two men in the sitting room below. The silence is almost overwhelming. The sudden solitude almost more than he can take.

_Victor Trevor._

He stares at his bedroom, neat, orderly. Nothing showing out of place. His bed has been reconstructed to its pristine perfection, not a fold or wrinkle out of place, and he breathes it in, this neatness, this order, this control. He is safe here. Nothing can touch him. Nothing can touch _him._

Harry.

_Harry._

He is on knees in an instant, crawling under the bed where the duffle bag he had brought his belongings in has been stowed. He sees the sagging lumps of its shape and reaches an arm under and drags it out. Does he have anything? Something? A newspaper, a letter, _anything?_

The zipper is undone and he rifles through the detritus on the bottom. Old receipts, a battered notebook, a broken pencil, a torn out article from a newspaper but it's about veteran's rights and not what he's looking for. He gives a huff and zips it up again, frustrated. He doesn't want to call Harry. But he needs to regardless. He doesn't know what's happening here but the possibilities are terrifying. It doesn't matter that they're not on terms. It doesn't matter that he hasn't spoken to her in weeks, not really. This is so much more than that. She is his sister.

He gives the empty duffle a frustrated push, venting some of his anger, his confusion, his fear, out on the hapless object, and it skids back under the bed, canvas catching on old wooden floorboards as it goes. A moment later he hears the rattle of something rolling along the floor on the other side and he frowns, wondering what he's dislodged.

He rises to his feet, walks around the bed, and stops when he sees the thing laying on the floor on the other side. It is a light-coloured line right at the edge of the shadow of the bed.

He stares at it for a full ten seconds before stooping to pick it, the thing held between two careful fingers.

_Harry. No. No. No._

This can't be real. Please, please let this not be real.

He needs to get out. He needs to get out now. This was too good to be true. He knew that from the start but still the confirmation of it is a physical blow, a blunt trauma at the centre of his chest. _Harry. Jesus Christ, Harry._

He debates the wisdom of putting the object back where he found it for a full thirty seconds, but in the end he tucks it up his sleeve, feeling the cool polish of its slim surface branding an icy line against his skin. He stops long enough to grab his wallet, his phone. His jacket is in the sitting room so he grabs a jumper instead. His good shoes are there too so he slips on the tattered old trainers he had never gotten around to tossing. The soles are almost worn through and there's a hole in the right toe but he doesn't care. They're quiet at least, silent as he steps across the floor and pulls open his bedroom door.

The voices float up to him clearly. Sherlock and Victor Trevor. Victor calling Sherlock rude. The faint sound of violin strings being softly brushed by inadvertent fingers.

John slips down the stairs, one at a time, intent on making no noise, but he doesn't miss it, that word. _Muggle._ It is John himself being referred to and John stops, pauses as he listens to the words being said.

_“I thought you were done with experiments.”_

And somehow that hurts even worse than John's original assumption.

“ _Shut up.”_

John frowns. He hasn't known Sherlock for very long but even he is surprised by the terseness of that tone, the unmistakable edge to it, and for the first time it occurs to John that this visit is about more than discomfort and social awkwardness and that perhaps he shouldn't have left the sitting room after all.

He stands, frozen on the steps, as the next words unfold, and by the time Sherlock's next _Shut up_ comes staggering up the stairs towards him John has lost all ability to think, to reason. He feels sick. He is hot with the anger that has surged up, the disbelief, the rage. There is nothing of control in his movement. There is nothing of reason. All he knows is that he is moving, that the rest of the stairs disappear beneath him, that he is in the doorway and that his feet are silent as they carry him into the sitting room where Victor and Sherlock are both turned away.

Victor Trevor's hand is bare inches from the back of Sherlock's neck, outstretched, possessive, Sherlock a statue with knuckles white on the neck of his violin. And that tableau, that picture, brings all John's awareness back, all his instincts. He stops halfway into the room and raises his arm, nine inches of polished yew clasped between his fingers. And his voice, when it comes out, is not his, but it is a voice that Harry would recognise, and the men he lived alongside in Afghanistan. It is low and it is dangerous and the words, “Don't. You. Fucking. Touch him,” are a warning laden with promise.

 


	31. Thirty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Errr...possible trigger warning for mild blood/gore for this chapter.

Those words, in that voice, unexpected and utterly out of nowhere, hit Sherlock like a wave of hot water. Everything stops as the shock of it, the surprise, the danger in it saturates the room and leaves the entire universe searching for its breath.

And then all at once everything is moving again and Sherlock's heart gives a lurch and his lungs gulp deeply at the air.

“Ah,” says Victor. “The Muggle.” And Sherlock knows that tone in his voice, that testing, that teasing, and he feels it slide away from him, it's awareness turning in another direction, and it's only when he's sure that Victor is no long looking at him, that that hand is no longer poised inches from his flesh, that Sherlock turns slowly towards the room.

And there is John, feet apart, arm outstretched, and in that callused hand, pointing straight at Victor's chest, is Sherlock's yew wand, nine inches long and unwavering in that soldier's grasp.

“Oh! Well isn't this a surprise!” Victor says, “The Muggle isn't such a Muggle after all.”

Sherlock can't see Victor's face but he hears the amusement overlaying the anger in his voice and he knows that this is when Victor is at his most dangerous, his most unpredictable. Sherlock wants to warn John, but those lake blue eyes are fixed unwaveringly on the wizard and they don't even flicker towards Sherlock who is broadcasting a frantic signal from behind.

“You need to leave,” John says, in that same voice, hot and flat and dangerous. “Now.”

“You know,” Victor says slowly. “I don't think I will.”

John says nothing, but Sherlock can feel the tension between them, and when Victor actually takes a step towards John, though he doesn't even flinch, the blue eyes grow dark and the hand holding the wand goes tight.

“However,” Victor says, and his voice is a purr. “You're very welcome to try whatever you like.” He takes another step closer and Sherlock can see the slightly puzzled look in John's face and Sherlock's trying to speak, to move, anything, but something holds him. Something is holding him. In his head he is screaming, except that suddenly, uncertainly, John's eyes finally, _finally_ slide towards him and whatever it is, whatever is in them, Sherlock can finally find his voice.

“The wards, John,” he croaks, and it's enough, it's enough, because there isn't a single heartbeat of hesitation in John's next movement, the sudden shift of his grip on the wand and the abrupt sideways lashing of a long thin object in its inexorable trajectory towards Victor's face. And even as the long thin line of blood blooms under the path of its landing, as Victor gives a shout, his hands coming up to cradle his marked face, his entire body curving inwards in an instinctual protective gesture, John's elbow is already ascending and as Victor leans forward John's elbow comes up and there is a crunch and a spurt of blood and Victor is falling back.

There is an arc of red through the air and for a moment everything hangs suspended and still, the world unmoving and without resolution, when for a moment everything is still unsure, everything could still be okay. And then there is the crash of a wooden chair splintering beneath the weight of a full grown man and Victor lands in a heap among the broken pieces, the blood from his shattered nose flowing over his face and staining the wine coloured robes into something brighter.

For a moment neither John nor Sherlock speak. Sherlock is panting but John isn't even breathing hard. They are staring at the unconscious man on the floor and Sherlock doesn't know what to do with this sudden intrusion of that other world back into his life. Even as he can feel the blood roaring a frantic and beat in his ears, he knows this is a bit not good, that whatever freedom from the laws of the Muggle world he's managed to gain, none of that matters in the Wizarding world. All that matters is that a Ministry official is unconscious on the floor of a warded building with blood running from his broken nose. And it is his building and his wards and his flatmate with murder printed on his ordinary, unassuming face. And everything in Sherlock wishes that those unspoken threats would manifest themselves because surely, surely a dead body would be easier to deal with, because if there's anything thirty-four years as a wizard has taught him it's that the police system in the Wizarding world is even more ineffectual and filled with morons than the one in the Muggle world.

“Easier to just kill him, I suppose.”

Sherlock looks up because it's not his voice that's said it. He meets John Watson's eyes over the suddenly empty space between them and that serious blue gaze is sparking with the beginnings of amusement and Sherlock actually finds himself grinning, his mouth pulling apart and upwards and he can't quite help the hysterical chuckle that escapes him.

“Much easier.”

John is grinning too now and they're staring at each other over the space where Victor used to be and Sherlock has so many questions, so many things he needs to know, but John is already moving towards him, the hand with the yew wand raised towards Sherlock, offering it wordlessly and Sherlock takes it, feeling the familiar, comforting weight of it in his hand and he can't believe he had ever thought to use it against John.

“Alright?” John asks and he's standing a little too close, inches inside the standard range for two flatmates having a friendly discussion, but much, much too far for Sherlock who wants to collapse inwards, who wants to fall in and catch himself on the small, steady frame before him. He wants the familiar scent he's come to know, the one that is tea and sugar and cheap soap and fabric softener and wool. And more than that, much more. He wants the things that only Billy can smell, the eccrine sweat and sebum and pheromones, leaking from John's every pore and sitting always on the fine layer of his imperfect skin. He wants to rub against him and know him and he actually takes a step forward, involuntary, and they are so close, close enough for Sherlock to lean forward, rest his head against John's neck and he feels a hand come up, callused and familiar, to thread searching fingers through his hair.

He groans and it comes out as a frantic giggle that he gulps back even as he feels tears rising to his traitorous eyes. The hand in his hair tightens, pressing against his scalp, fingertips massaging gently against skin and bone and follicle, and it is so good, so familiar. He knows this so well and he is afraid he will start purring soon. The gentle tugging at the roots of his hair makes him sigh and he buries his face inwards, his nose pressing into the glorious scent of that warm neck.

“Sherlock?”

John's voice, quiet, soft, a gentle question, and Sherlock hums a response, utterly, utterly unprepared for what comes next.

“What was your wand doing under my bed?”

 


	32. Thirty-Two

John feels the sudden stiffening of the body under his hand and everything in him revolts against it. John wants to hold him, wants to stroke him into submission, wants to run his fingers for hours through that unruly hair, a motion that is unmistakably comforting and hideously, hideously familiar.

But he is questioning everything now. He is questioning _everything._

“Sherlock?”

“It's....not what you think?”

John says nothing. He doesn't even know himself what he's thinking. Or yes, he does. He knows what he's thinking but everything in him is cringing away from that possibility, but he can't deny it. He can't pretend is doesn't exist because Harry... _Harry..._

“John?”

He doesn't say anything. Sherlock's nose is warm and his eyes are wet, his breath a brush of humidity against his skin. John can feel the beginning of tears against his neck and everything in him wants to hold this man, but not yet. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Harry. _Harry. Jesus Christ, Harry._

He is lowering his hand, stepping away. He stares at Sherlock, watching him closely, searching for some reaction that will tell him something, _anything,_ but all he sees is confusion and hurt and John steels himself against it because he doesn't know anything. He doesn't know anything at all.

“I have to go,” John says.

“John, I can explain it. It wasn't—I didn't know you were a wizard. I would have told you—”

“I have to go,” he says again, because if he keeps saying it maybe it'll make it easier.

“No. No. You don't. You don't have to go.”

“Yeah. I—sorry. I forgot. Job interview.”

“It's eight in the evening.”

“A and E. King's College. It's—last minute. I didn't think it would come through.”

“John—”

“I have to go. I'll see you later.” _Maybe._

He snatches his jacket, leaves his shoes. The trainers are tattered but he doesn't care. It's unimportant. He doesn't look back at Sherlock as he practically flees down the stairs, but he can still feel the softness of those curls against his fingers, the faint spot of damp on his shirt collar where unwillingly shed tears had fallen into his neck.

“John?”

He hears it, faint and uncertain and it is one of the hardest things he's ever had to do to make himself keep going and shut the black door behind him.

He turns right as he leaves the house, his back hunched, aware of eyes at his back, all around him. He remembers Mycroft Holmes and his cameras and he swears he sees them following him, turning after him as he goes. He ignores them, does his best to dismiss it as paranoia. He needs to calm down. He needs to relax.

It is a half hour walk and he counts every heartbeat along the way, focusing on the numbers, on the steady march of blood and breath, the steady cycle of oxygen and carbon. When he reaches St James Park, he walks straight to the centre, shadowy now, fully dark, the park lights not doing nearly enough to illuminate the paths.

It's perfect. He finds the darkest bench he can and sits down, and as soon as he does he pulls his mobile from his pocket and dials Harry's number.

She picks up after the fifth ring and before he hears her voice he hears the sussuration of too many voices, the telltale clatter of glassware, and then her voice, a slightly slurred sigh of annoyance.

_“Why is it that the only time you ever call me it's when I'm sitting in a bar?”_

“Why are you always sitting in a bar whenever I call you?” he bites back, already exhausted by this exchange, the routine these words have become between them.

Harry barks a bitter laugh. _“Hello to you too, little brother.”_

He doesn't have time for this. Doesn't have the energy or the will. “Where are you Harry?”

There's a pause, laden with suspicion. _“I don't need you to pick me up. I'm not that drunk. I'm not drunk at all. I'm not always drunk, you know.”_

“I know. I didn't mean—” he forces himself to stop, take a breath, _think._ “I need to talk to you, Harry. I don't care where you are or what you're doing. Just tell me where you are so we can talk.”

He can almost hear her careless shrug. _“We're talking now.”_

“Not like this. It's not—” Not what? Secure? Safe? _My new flatmate has a creepy brother that secretly runs the country and is probably watching me through CCTV and has more than likely tapped my phone line and is listening to us right now._ “Just. Tell me where you are.”

Another pause, even more suspicious. _“Are you in trouble?”_

 _Is he?_ “Harry. Please.”

He can almost hear her thinking, and finally, that shrug again. He knows her, just as well as she knows him, and sure enough, a short moment later she sighs. _“Alright. I've got to get out of here anyway. Tell me where you are, little brother. I'm coming to find you.”_


	33. Thirty-Three

Long after the door slams shut behind John, Sherlock stands in the sitting room door and stares into the empty hall.

He doesn't know what he's done. He doesn't know why John's left. Victor is lying unconscious beside the table, the wreckage of the chair around him, and the sense of abandonment Sherlock feels is almost childlike in its intensity. He can still feel John's fingers in his hair, pressed into his scalp. He can still smell him. He doesn't know what he's done wrong but he wants to ask. He wants to know. And he's worried because the look on John's face as he had turned his back and fled the flat, had been far too close to fear.

And then his own fear returns, because behind him Victor gives a groan.

Sherlock doesn't stay, doesn't wait. He feels the lurch deep at the pit of his stomach and he slips down the stairs and is out the door without shoes, without coat. The street is empty and it is almost entirely dark. The first shadowed doorway he finds he ducks into and seconds later he emerges again as Billy.

It is freeing. It is a relief. He can already feel his heart rate sliding back to normal ranges. And he can still smell John, his scent only minutes old.

Sherlock follows without hesitation. He doesn't even pause when he sees the familiar black car pull into Baker Street and stop in front of 221B. His last sight is a half-glance backwards as he edges around the corner, of Mycroft and a pert-nosed witch with long brown hair pulled back into a neat knot at the back of her head. He knows that Victor will be gone when he gets back.

When he gets back with John.

That isn't even an option.

John is walking quickly but Sherlock doesn't try to catch up. It is getting dark fast now but he doesn't dare risk being seen by John. He stays several blocks behind, slinking from shadow to shadow, avoiding the open pavement where pedestrians still walk in droves. It's a weekday evening, after dinner but before the night city wakes, so it's not as crowded as it could be and Sherlock is grateful for that, because the route John takes is all wide open main thoroughfares and even the average Londoner would stop and take notice of a cat trotting purposefully along the pavement.

By the time Sherlock reaches St James park, it is fully dark out and Sherlock no longer knows what John is doing, why he's here. It's a strange place to choose. He had thought a pub, a restaurant at a stretch, a late night cafe. But the middle of a park in the dark?

He puts the questions aside. If he can't deduce it he can ask, because he has no intention of letting John slip away from him, no intention of letting him walk off without providing some kind of reply to that look of terror he had directed at Sherlock right before he had walked away, right on the tail of threatening and wounding a Ministry official. John. _John._ The strangest, most unutterably extraordinary man Sherlock had ever met. And apparently he is a wizard.

Sherlock almost walks straight into the back of the bench, deep in the shadowy centre of the park. But the sharp sigh, half sob, that John lets loose in the shadows above alerts him and he freezes, unsure if he's been seen. But John is facing away and he is scrubbing his face with hands curled in claws, as if he is trying to strip the flesh from his skull and Sherlock wants to go to him, wants to take those hands and pull them into his own, demand answers, stare at him, pick out the solution to all these problems in the lines of his imperfect face. But he doesn't. He slinks backwards, crouches in the darkest shadow of the nearest tree, and settles in to wait.

He doesn't know what he's waiting for, but it occurs to him that the one thing John would be doing in this solitary place is meeting someone. He has no idea who John, of all people, could be meeting, but he is ready to find out, and just as he is settling himself in for a long boring hour, a figure appears along the path, a woman, staggering slightly and obviously the worse for drink. Sherlock can smell it from here, but he can smell other things too and he sees enough to take in those expressive features, the ravages of a once pretty face, and he knows, without a doubt, just who this is.


	34. Thirty-Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for this chapter: mention of past torture and mention of past rape. neither of these things are described graphically.

Harry is only slightly swaying when she finally appears, staggering from the lamplight into the shadow of his bench. She doesn't look at him, slumps onto the seat next to him, her expression becoming clear only when she leans back and John looks at her, traces the worn lines of her face, the dark circles under her eyes, the unsteady tremor in her hands.

“How are you?” he asks, before anything else, and she throws a bitter glance in his direction before looking straight ahead again.

“Nothing that a few more drinks won't fix,” she throws at him challengingly. Then with a sigh, “Cut line, little brother.”

He opens his mouth to retort but the name Victor Trevor is still there, still hovering in the forefront of his mind, the name Sherlock Holmes right beside it. He is thinking of all the things he should have realised, all the things he should have thought of sooner. Consulting detective. The cat the landlady didn't even know existed. The wand discovered in his room, where he sleeps, as if dropped in a hurry. He thinks of nights stroking the purring cat to sleep. He thinks of days believing he was alone and safe. He thinks of all those moments when he'd thought—he'd believed...that soft glances and careful breakfasts and stuttered words edging uncertainly into the space between them, saying nothing, saying everything...saying nothing after all.

Too good to be true, his instincts had kept telling him, and they'd been right. He thinks of Sherlock crying quietly into his shoulder only an hour before and he wants to believe, he wants to believe so badly, but there is nothing he trusts anymore. His every instinct had shied against trusting this situation and he realises, with a shattering clarity, how right he had been.

“John?”

Harry is looking at him now, her head fully turned to face him and he sees concern there, for the first time in...years. _In years._ It is almost alien to see anything sketched in the lines of that face, no longer familiar, that isn't fear or exhaustion or bitter anger, and John feels a softening warmth that almost levels him because this is more than he can handle right now and all at once he begins to be afraid again because what has he done now but lead them directly to her?

“I'm fine, Harry. Christ. I shouldn't have come here. I shouldn't have called you. But I needed to—I needed to see that you were okay. Shit, I've fucked up. We need to go. You need to go. I called you from here, they'll find us—“

He is rising, ready to flee, to run, to go anywhere but he doesn't know where because he doesn't know anywhere that could be safe, that could hide them. All he knows is that they need to be moving. He needs to get her safe...

“John, stop!” Harry's hand gripping his arm, pulling him back. He falls back onto the bench and she has both his arms in a solid grasp now and she is leaning into him, looking at him closely, eyes wide and worried.

“John, fuck's sake. Panicking is my job. Now tell me what the hell happened.”

“My flatmate,” he says, the words falling off his tongue before he can stop them, his voice quick and high and urgent. “The new one. It was so perfect. Fuck, Harry, I should have known right then but it's been years. I didn't think—he's a wizard, Harry. And—fuck. I think he's one of those...what are they called. He turns into a cat. I swear it's true. And I found his wand under my bed today and he's been watching me, all this fucking time and I never even realised. And I thought—there was something. We could be something. I thought—I don't know. I don't know what I thought. I thought I could trust him. I thought I could trust him.”

She is watching him carefully, her hands still on his arms and he knows that look on her face, the one that says _Stop imagining things, John, stop thinking this means more than it does._

“So, he's a wizard," she says and he can hear the enforced reason in her tone, the effort it is taking to keep her own uncertainty at bay. “And well...he has a wand. And he's an animagus. It's not that big of a deal, is it? There are wizards everywhere.”

“He describes himself as a consulting detective.”

She pauses. “Right. Well. Still. Not everything has to mean...it was a long time ago, John. The war was a long time ago.”

John doesn't want to say what comes next. He doesn't want to put that expression back on his sister's face. He is revelling in this humanness, this sudden proof that maybe, one day, there will be a time when the fear doesn't mean everything.

But he has to. _He has to._ “There was a man there today. Another wizard. He said—his name—Harry—”

She is staring at him, watching wide-eyed and he knows the moment she understands. The moment the words are no longer necessary. But she is the one that says it, the one that gives it voice. He watches the humanness slip away and the terror return and it is like it was all those years ago, when she had reappeared on his doorstep after days of being missing, days in which every worst fear had passed through his head and left him shaking. But it had turned out to be a different nightmare, after all. The opposite, but oh still so the same.

“Victor Trevor.”

The name creates a silence, a hollow in which they two together sit shivering while the rest of the world passes on around them and doesn't care.

He tells her everything then, everything that had happened since he moved into Baker Street, every word he remembers saying. To Sherlock. To Billy. He tells her about his room and the groceries and the mysteries and he tells her about a hand on his thigh and a seduction only moments before Victor had walked into the room. He tells her about the conversation he had heard, about Victor not using magic, about Sherlock's uttered warning and the way he had collapsed afterwards, crying on John's shoulder and John had known, in that instance, that those curls were ones he'd threaded his fingers through before.

“And you think—” she stops, hesitates. Like him, doesn't quite know what to believe, but the coincidence is incredible and whatever hopes, whatever he wished for from Sherlock, is confused now, tangled up in the memory of his sister reappearing on his doorstep after days of being missing with her soul hollowed out.

“I don't know,” he admits. “I thought—I wanted—but I don't know. I don't trust myself with him. And it doesn't matter anyway because even the chance of it, even the uncertainty—”

“Oh my God.”

“I'm sorry. Harry—”

“So stupid.”

“I didn't know—”

“Not you. Me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

And to his horror she is crying, her face contorted and her eyes streaming as she gulps in frantic breaths and he doesn't know what to do because this isn't his sister, drowning hours worth of memories into years of alcohol. This isn't his sister, bitter and sarcastic with her brittle shield raised between her and everyone else. Even him. Except for those few brief moments when she'd told him...and then vanished again with only a note that as soon as he had read it had disappeared from his grasp as thoroughly as she had herself, telling him she was safe, that she was hiding, that they would never find her again.

“Harry, how is this your fault?”

“Fuck, John. All those years ago. You didn't wonder why they took me?”

“The war. You said there was a war. We all saw it, the bridges collapsing, the people disappearing. I thought they had taken you, too.”

And abruptly she stops crying, stares at him with wide wet eyes, and the fear he sees is for him.

“I did something, John. I never told you. I never told you what I did.”

He's shaking his head, back and forth, a frantic pendulum sway. “No. You don't have to. You're my sister, Harry. I don't need to know this. You don't need to tell me.”

“I know. But. I want you to know. I've never told anyone. And I need to. John, I need to.”

God, he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to know. Knowing what she had gone through was enough, was more than enough. To find there was a reason. To realise she had been hunted...

“You know what was going on then,” she says.

“What you told me. What I saw in that paper. The Daily Prophet. The Quibbler.”

“You had to know. You were in danger. I didn't want to involve you but—anyway. You know what was happening, with You-Know-Who and Harry Potter. How people were being taken, the impure bloodlines being scourged. I'm impure. You know that. I explained all that. Born of two Muggles, the only witch in the family. They came after me. Of course they did. I mean, I'm no one important, but eventually my name was mentioned. They came for me. I—I was scared. Oh God, Johnny, I was so scared.”

And she still is, he sees it in her face, the way her entire body hunches forward as if protecting itself from a blow. She is utterly terrified on this dark bench in the middle of London, years afterwards.

“You don't know what it's like, those chambers,” she says. “In the very bottom of the Ministry. So far underground. There's a chair and they make you sit in it and they asked me who I had murdered and I hadn't, I hadn't, Johnny. I hadn't killed anyone. Not then. They asked who I had killed, whose wand I had stolen. They wouldn't believe me that it was my own, that it had always been mine. They didn't _want_ to believe me. I was so scared, Johnny.”

“Harry, you don't need to—”

“No, I do, I do. I need to say this. I need to say this. Please. Let me tell you.”

She is clutching at him, her fingers in claws on his arms and her eyes are huge in her face, her blonde hair bedraggled and her breath reeking of spirits. “Yeah,” he says. “Course. Course you can tell me.”

She takes a shuddering breath but she doesn't relax at all, her hands don't shift from his arms. “They were going to take me away. To—to the prison. The Dementors were already there. They were going to—to _kiss me._ ” She says it in a whisper, in a voice almost breathless. And John knows what this means. Had heard enough tales, from Harry's days at Hogwarts, from The Daily Prophet, The Quibbler. He wasn't part of the wizarding world but because of Harry he had always lived on its edges, knowing more than he should, reading the strange books she brought home with her, almost like fairy tales, some fantastical world that he alone in his ordinary school and his ordinary friends knew the secret of.

He remembered playing with her wand and feeding her ancient, wart-covered toad that they had rescued together from the back of a dark shop in Diagon Alley, a shadowy, unsanitary place filled with unhappy, hissing cats and miserably huddled rats and balefully glaring owls. She had wanted to take them all, save them all, but it was John who had asked the hunched and scowling wizard behind the counter which animal had been there the longest and he had paid for it himself with the money he had exchanged at the enormous goblin-run bank, the few pennies he had saved from a father determined to drink himself to death.

During the summer holidays she had taught him spells, how to hold a wand, all the things she had learnt herself but where sparks and light shot forth from the slim bit of wood when wielded in her hand, nothing would happen when clasped in his. He had practised anyhow and she had taught him, learning to perfect her own techniques by correcting his. It was fun, it was so much fun. He wanted to know everything and she wanted to tell him everything. They had always been close, but after the letter had come for her on her eleventh birthday, the bond between them had strengthened immeasurably with the added weight of the secrets that lay between them, and that first summer she had come back was the best summer John could ever remember.

Now he stares at his sister, that same sister that had gripped his hand in her own, showing him how to _swish and flick,_ and that secret world between them is filled with dark places neither of them had ever dreamt of as a children.

“What happened, Harry?” he says, remembering the moving photographs of the Dementors, dark hoods suspended among a cloudy sky, and the shiver he had felt even then when they had only been pictures.

“I told them—I told them I would give them names. People who had gone into hiding. People who had run. Blood traitors and Muggle lovers and mudbloods. I told them I would give them anything.”

The silence that descends between them is a lost thing. John is staring at her, at this sister he has always loved so much, the sister he will always love. And he can still see the fear on her face, the terror, years later. This guilt. This horror at her own willing betrayal of people she had for years counted as friends. And he doesn't know what to say but it doesn't matter because everything, everything that would be possible is a litany inside her own head, keeping her awake at night and turning her towards the temporary lull of alcohol. He understands this. Understands it without a single word from her, and he turns his arm in her grip and twists his fingers around hers and holds on.

“Harry—”

She shakes her head, silencing him and his lips snap shut as she speaks again.

“It was after this. After the war. After He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was defeated, before Harry Potter started changing everything. The Ministry was embarrassed by its own defeat, its own involvement with the Dark Lord, and they started looking. At the records. At the names of all those people killed. They found my name, of course, from the trial. And the names of the people I had had murdered. They sent an Auror. Victor Trevor. He was you know, back then. Just starting. Didn't last long, not after Potter came into his own and started changing things around with Minister Kingsley. Victor Trevor came and knocked on my door and he didn't—didn't say a word. Didn't say a thing. I opened my door to a wand raised in my face and the Imperius curse fired straight between my eyes.

“He took me. I wanted to go, really. That's what the Imperius does. It makes you want to do it. We Apparated together and when I came back to myself I was chained somewhere, dark, underground, my wand was gone. Just Victor Trevor there. And he—he did things. The Cruciatus. He did other things, too. He used the Imperius and he—did things.”

“Jesus. Harry. You escaped. I didn't even—you escaped.”

She nods, a frantic, uncontrolled motion and he wants to take her head between his hands but he is afraid to touch her right now, afraid of frightening her, of making of flinch away. “I did. Clara.”

“Clara's a Squib, I thought.”

“She is. I never told you how we met, did I? She's one of the people whose families I destroyed. But she isn't cruel. She saw—the things he did. She brought me my wand one day. I used it. I cursed him. The Cruciatus. I used the wand on the chains and Apparated out. Right to you.”

“Harry.”

“I thought I was safe. After all these years. I thought I was safe.”

And she is crying again, sobbing into his lap, her whole body shaking beneath his hands and he holds her, holds her head against him while she cries and there's nothing he can do. There is nothing he can say to make this better.

“I love you,” he says instead. “I will always love you. I will always be here.”

And because of the way he is sitting, half turned on the bench, hunched over Harry with the light behind his head, he sees the small movement in the shadow of the tree behind the bench and he knows, he knows—even before he sees the gleam of reflected light off of round yellow eyes—that they're not alone.


	35. Thirty-Five

Sherlock knows the moment John sees him. Can hear the near silent hitch of his breath, the sudden quickening of his heart. Hears, with perfect clarity, the breathless whisper of warning to his sister: “Harry. Run.”

And Harry's voice, caught on a sob, “John?”

“Harry, _run.”_

Her head swings around, her eyes blurred and sticky with tears, unable to see properly, but Sherlock has already started to move, sliding from the shadow, his small body becoming clear in a brighter patch of darkness in the grass and she sees him anyway, her reaction instantaneous.

She gives a cry and is on her feet, stumbling slightly, but her wand is out. For a moment Sherlock thinks he's in danger, wondering if he will be able to outrun whatever curse or hex she seems intent on throwing at him, but John is suddenly there, pushing her aside, standing in front of her, and his narrow frame, still wasted with sickness, with lack of food, stands squarely between Sherlock and his sister.

“Harry,” he says deliberately. “Go.”

She gives one last sobbing gasp and with a half turn she is gone, the loud crack of her Disapparation echoing for a moment in the air before the silence comes back and Sherlock is left staring at John, wondering what happens next.

For twenty-six seconds John doesn't speak and Sherlock doesn't move, barely breathes. He can hear John, though, his heart a hurried beat just at the edges of Sherlock's hearing, his breath deep and deliberate and warning of a battle that Sherlock has no intention of engaging in.

“Why did you follow me?”

It's the first thing John says and it breaks into the air between them and cracks it, brittle and tense and shattering under the pressure of too many things that Sherlock doesn't understand—fear and longing and dread.

“What are you doing here? Why were you listening?”

Sherlock doesn't answer. He's a cat still and while he knows that this charade is done, that there's nothing left to hide now, he is still oddly reluctant to let it go, to drop this last defence.

John huffs, clearly frustrated. “I know, you know. I know it's you, Sherlock. You did nearly trick me, though. Is that what you want to know? If you fooled me at all? Well, you did. Well done, you. Tricked the stupid Muggle. You didn't even have to try, did you? How fucking desperate was I? It must have been perfect. Finding me the way you did. No choice at all. Flat. Food. Something to do. _Someone_ to do. Is that why they chose you for this? Let's find the prettiest bloke we can? Give him a nice sob story, something really tragic. Something that hits nice and close to home for him. Jesus, I'm such an idiot. And still in the end I led you right to her. Jesus fucking Christ, you arseholes really got lucky with me, didn't you?”

He is breathing hard now, his hands curling into fists at his side, clenching and unclenching, his chin jutting out and his eyes dangerous in the dark.

Sherlock almost forgets that he's a cat in that moment. Takes a step forward, opens his mouth, John's name falling from it and coming out as a high-pitched _mew._

He freezes in surprise and he sees John freeze too, every muscle clenching. Then slowly that jaw unclenches and John's voice grates out: “I swear to God, if I've been talking to an actual bloody cat this whole time—”

Sherlock starts to purr, because it's funny and he wants to giggle, wants to collapse against John and laugh about this and they will. He swears they will. John is staring at him, lost-looking and suspicious, and Sherlock knows he needs to end this. Knows this is it, his final layer stripped away. But it's right. It's good. He's never done this in front of anyone before. Except once, for Victor, trying to make a point and failing. Victor to whom he'd given up far too many things to already.

He concentrates, an almost instinctive thing by now, already feeling his heart beat slowing, his breaths deepening, his muscles lengthening. The world grows muffled and dark, his vision changing and filling with shadows, until he is staring straight ahead into John's wary face and the sound of his heartbeat is gone.

“Well. Technically you _were_ talking to a cat,” he says.

 


	36. Thirty-Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter: Description of past rape/assault and bullying.

John sputters. He can't help it. It is an effort, with Sherlock standing before him, his expression bordering on sheepish, to remember all the suspicions, the uncertainties. He doesn't know what to believe. He knows what he wants to believe, though, and that's what frightens him. His own blindness. His own want.

“So,” Sherlock says and he is palpably nervous, his fingers twitching at his sides. He is wearing no shoes and no coat and he looks ridiculous standing there in the grass, his sleek black trousers ending on white ankles and feet.

“Right,” John says. He has no idea what to say next.

“You're...not a wizard,” Sherlock says, but it's questioning, wanting confirmation, and John is trying to remember everything he and Harry said, how wise it is to admit to this when he doesn't know the intentions behind the question.

“You are,” he says instead.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”

“Yeah, well, stupid Muggle, remember?”

“I didn't mean that.”

“It's fine.”

Sherlock frowns because even he can tell it's not really fine.

“I mean. Yes. I'm a wizard, John.”

John bites back a sarcastic retort, stifles a sigh. Sherlock is trying. He is actually trying.

“I'm not a wizard, Sherlock.”

“What did you think you were going to do against Victor, then?”

“Distract him enough to punch him in the face.”

“You're an idiot.”

“Yeah, well, it worked.”

“Still an idiot.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” The words come out of nowhere, and the small beginnings of the smile that had started to appear in the corner of Sherlock's eyes has vanished. He looks at John and John, his face carefully blank, looks back.

“Yes,” Sherlock says. “I was.”

He looks more puzzled by this answer than even John feels.

“You're not lying,” John says.

“No,” and again that surprise at his own answer.

John's heart is beating so fast. He wants to believe. Everything in him is straining towards this man and the intensity of the need in him is terrifying. He's never felt this, not even with James, who he hadn't doubted for an instant would be something that lasted for the rest of their lives. Now he looks at this man, this wizard, barefoot in St James at night and he thinks how incredible it could be if he could trust him.

“How much did you hear?” John asks him, because he has to know. “How much did you hear. With Harry.”

“Nothing,” Sherlock says and John knows he's lying. He's already taking a step back, already the heavy settling of disappointment at the pit of his stomach, and then Sherlock's voice again, quick and frantic. “Everything. I heard everything. I meant to. It's why I followed you.”

“You knew I was going to meet Harry?” And there are the alarm bells again, louder this time, and he doesn't have a wand and he doesn't have magic but Harry is safe at least. Harry is gone.

“No!” Sherlock moving towards him, hands up and empty. “Not like that. I didn't know—Victor—you left me there alone. He was waking up. I had to know where you—I had to know if you were coming back. I didn't want you to go.”

“Why not?”

And that's the question, isn't it? He hadn't wanted to ask. Hadn't wanted to put that sort of burden on something they hadn't even managed to define yet. They were nothing to each other, after all. A week of sharing a flat and the greatest amount of their time together one of them had spent as a cat. It's not fair, but John can't be fair. He can't afford it.

“I don't know,” Sherlock says. “I...don't want you to go.”

“Why not?”

The frustrated impotence on Sherlock's face is eloquent. “Well, do you want to go?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

Sherlock doesn't even look triumphant, just frustrated and annoyed and John can appreciate that. He almost smiles and Sherlock must see it because there is a lightening in the curve of his lips and he gives a huff and glances away, his bare feet digging at the ground.

“I don't know,” John admits. “But.” How does he even say this. “There was someone. It wasn't—it wasn't very long ago. A year? I guess that is sort of long. It was—he was—”

“I know.”

“Well, no, you don't—”

“No. I mean. Yes. I do.”

John stares at him, eyes wide, not understanding, because this is too much of a coincidence. First Victor Trevor. James, too? He's already shutting down. Backing away. But it is a slow process because he doesn't want to and Sherlock catches him easily, three long steps forward and his hands are on John's wrist, holding on.

“No, it's not like that. I mean. It's worse, probably. I saw the files.”

“The files—” and it hits him. Of course. His bloody laptop. “You nosey fucking wanker.”

“Honestly, John. It's not my fault you make it so easy.”

“Why do you even need to use mine in the first place?”

“Mine was in my room. And then I...I just wanted to know. After that show with the blue box and the annoying blonde.”

_“Doctor Who?”_

“Well you weren't talking to me!”

“You never even asked!”

“Would you have told me? Really, John?”

“Well, no, but it wasn't any of your bloody business then. Now it is. And yes, I'm telling you. Or I was going to if you weren't such a nosey bloody wanker.”

“You should be pleased.”

 _“Pleased?_ What—?!”

“I'm saving us so much time!”

“Oh my God!”

“Why does it even matter now? I know. You don't have to tell me.”

“Look, it's just...difficult. Okay? For me. This.” He waves his hand ineffectually in the air. “This. You. I—I don't know what I can give you.”

“I'll take it,” Sherlock says quickly, the words almost slurring together in his haste to get them out. “Whatever it is. Anything.”

And John is silenced at that because he wants to. He wants to give everything to him and wants so badly to remember how.

“Sherlock, it doesn't—it's not that easy.”

“Fine. Easy is boring.”

“I don't—I don't know anything. About—Sherlock, there's Harry.”

“Harry's gone.”

“I don't bloody want Harry gone, though, you git. That's the point. And—Christ, Sherlock. I don't know anything. I don't know _anything._ You just showed up out of nowhere and your stupid cat and your fucking wand and bloody fucking Victor fucking Trevor. Shit. I don't _know._ And if she came back. If it wasn't safe. And if it was _my fault._ ”

“I'm not working with Victor Trevor. I have nothing to do with that world anymore.”

“I don't _know_ that, though. Jesus, Sherlock. I just—”

“I was fifteen.”

And John stops, because the way Sherlock says that, his breath half held as if expecting some kind of blow for saying the words, makes John immediately tense and he can feel himself leaning towards him, a tentative attempt at protection that he doesn't know is welcome.

“Victor was sixteen. You heard what he was saying earlier? We knew each other a long time. Grew up together. When we were younger we....he touched. We did things. It was good, though. But he turned—well, it was less good, anyway.

“I tried to get away from him after that. He never really let me. Never talked to me in public but when we were alone—doesn't matter. We stopped being friends. When I was fifteen he came into the toilets while I was there. Ages since I had let him corner me somewhere. He was...nice.” Sherlock spits the word, some kind of curse. “Sweet. He wanted to be friends again. I...let him touch me. And that's when his friends came in.

“They used a hex. Made it himself. Victor was always very good at spells. Froze me, my pants around my ankles, my arse in the air, my hands holding it open. They took turns putting things inside me. A quill. Victor used his wand. His friend had a bottle of butterbeer.”

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock—”

The hands on his wrist convulse, tighten, and John goes silent, forcing himself to watch the stark face above him that is so carefully not looking back. This isn't real. This isn't happening. He doesn't understand how this happened. Harry and Sherlock and God only knows who else, how many others.

“They left the bottle in there. Couldn't move still, not till I was found. Two second years. They had to bring the nurse in to free me. Don't know how long. Later Victor made me give him the money for the butterbeer they used.”

John has no idea what to say, but the hands on his wrist are shaking now, he can feel them, a tremor moving up his arm.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” he asks, because he remembers that from Harry, when she had come back to him, the way she had flinched back from every contact, wide round eyes following his every move. But Sherlock only nods, a single silent drop of his chin, and John lets his loose hand come up till it's resting against Sherlock's neck and with a sigh Sherlock is dropping forward, his head on John's shoulder, exactly like they were before. Mere hours ago, but it's different this time because there is nothing that stops John from wrapping his other arm around him and pulling him closer until they are flush, the contact warm and solid between them.

Sherlock doesn't talk, doesn't cry, but when John starts threading his fingers through his hair again Sherlock gives a quiet moan, a small, thankful sound, and John feels the responding warmth against his neck, the brush of lips, the tip of a wet tongue. And John feels the last vestiges of his uncertainty vanish as pulls away, far enough to find that pale face above him, and finally, _finally,_ he kisses Sherlock back.


	37. Thirty-Seven

The world stops. Sherlock's read that somewhere, or heard it. It doesn't matter. It's a phrase he had dismissed as pure drama, the absurdity of emotion and the cessation of brain activity that accompanies it. The world never stops. The world is always moving, people living, cars screeching, crimes committed. The world never stops.

But it does. He swears it does. There is nothing outside of this, the hard-soft pressure of lips beneath his own. He hasn't felt this in....years. _Years._ Had never wanted to feel this again. And still yet this is nothing like what Victor had done, this tender, gentle exploration, not even close to the frantic curiosity of two boys trying to discover their bodies, even before Victor had grown cruel in his touches.

The universe shrinks down to John's lips, a tentative, careful pressure against his own, and then expands to include John's body, a heavy warmth against his, and the noise of this world is the sigh of John's breath breaking across his tongue.

Sherlock moans, a sound that is too loud in this tiny universe between them, and he feels John's fingers tighten at his neck, the hitch in his breath as he presses closer, the tip of his tongue sliding along parted lips. He makes a noise that could be Sherlock's name but it's slurred and broken and breathless and Sherlock feels a growl vibrate in the back of his throat, his hands grasping now at clothing, at the solid circle of John's waist, dipping downwards to feel the beginnings of hips and lower still, pulling John upwards and towards him and the sounds that break between them are frantic now, the movement of their lips urgent and messy, a mixture of hot breath and wet tongue.

Mouths land on cheeks and chins, tongues brush against noses and teeth almost as much as they find lips and tongue. There is nothing graceful about this, nothing elegant or clean. Sherlock is panting and the tiny world they've made is swaying now with the unsteady shuddering of hips trying to find each other.

Friction becomes all important, the friction of hands and mouth and tongue and that place deep between his legs that Sherlock hasn't considered for years. Incredible how important it becomes in a single instant, how all-consuming, that bit of pressure on such a previously unimportant bit of skin.

“John,” he says, the name coming out in a gasp.

“Sherlock,” John sighs, his voice almost muffled by the skin of Sherlock's neck. “Duck.”

And suddenly the warmth is gone and the universe expands in a noisy explosion of too much movement. John's arms, pulling him close, suddenly thrust him sideways and he falls, suspended for an instant before the ground slams up towards him and his breath is torn from him in a grunt.

A heartbeat, maybe two, and he is already fighting for his feet and by the time the world stills long enough for him to see again, John is five feet away, his back towards Sherlock and his arms spread defensively at his sides, and ten feet away, just under the shadow of the tree Sherlock himself had hidden beneath, is Victor Trevor and Harry Watson is kneeling at his feet.

 


	38. Harry

_Run run run run run run run._

Harry stumbles as she Apparates, her feet scraping on wet stone and she lands in a heap on her knees, hands stinging against rough edges.

She is breathing hard, the air cold and damp in her lungs. She knows the taste of this air. She knows the reek of it, of cold and loneliness and hopelessness, urine and starvation and desperation. She is too afraid to look up. Too afraid to see where her own mind has brought her in the terror of her flight. This place fixed firmly in her mind for years now, the alcohol the only thing that is capable of obscuring it.

She pushes herself upwards, onto her knees, stumbling to her feet. Her wand is slippery in her hand but she needs to get out. She needs to get out. If only she could think of something else, something that isn't this basement, these stones, this darkness crowding every corner of her mind.

But it's too late because she hears the quickened patter of footsteps on stone stairs and he's there, the same, hasn't changed at all.

“No.”

He is slightly breathless and there is blood on his face, stiffening the front of his robes. Everything about him is red, blood red in the dimness of this dark place. His face is slack with surprise and the beginning of deep bruises, and there is a moment, a brief second in which Harry sees her escape, her wand raising in a shaking hand—

_“Expelliarmus!”_

And she watches it clatter across the floor. She can feel the panic rising up, the terror taking over. _No no no no no this isn't happening this can't be happening this is done the war is over it's over—_

“And where did you come from my lovely thing?”

His voice, exactly as she remembers, slightly breathless after he had finished with her, leaving her crouched unmoving on the floor, the underlying instinct of wrongness once he had finished thrusting into her, his seed spilling out of her onto the floor.

“F-fuck you,” she says, hearing how much her own voice is shaking. “I'm not afraid of you.”

He looks shocked, eyes wide and nostrils flared. “What?” he demands, his voice a light exaggeration of outrage. “And take _all_ the fun out of it? My dear, surely we can do better than that.”

And she thinks of John, kind eyes and gentle hands, the lines in his face creased with concern, with love, even as he stands powerless before a wizard and tells her to run. And it's his face in her mind as she straightens, lifts her chin and looks him squarely in the face. “Fuck you, Victor Trevor. Fuck you. My brother's going to kill you. He's going to find you. He knows. He knows who you are now. It doesn't matter what you do to me here because he knows now and there is _nothing_ that is going to stop him from finding you. Nothing that will keep you safe.”

Except he doesn't look frightened. Not even a bit. He actually smiles, a sly, flirtatious thing as he takes a single step forward. “How fascinating,” Victor Trevor says. “Tell me more.”

The effort it takes not to retreat, to stand her ground, is enormous. Her skin is crawling, her heart thudding too rapidly and leaving her breathless. “I'm not telling you anything. Never. Never again. I hate you. I'm never telling you anything ever again.”

“You're adorable, you know that? A little dim, but adorable. _Crucio.”_

And she screams, the agony a sudden and intolerable thing. There is no way to counter it, no walls left in her mind to stand between her and the pain that is wracking every limb, every muscle, tearing her into pieces so that when it stops it is a shock to her that she is still whole, that there is no blood or broken bones and that everything is still inside her, nothing spilling into the stone around her and making the ground red.

“That was just for fun, of course,” Victor says, and she hears it from somewhere else, somewhere that she isn't. “Because I've missed you so much,” he says. And from a nightmare, a dream: “ _Imperio.”_

And the pain is gone, wiped away in an instant and everything is okay, everything is wonderful. She doesn't understand why she was so upset in the first place because the world is just that little bit fuzzy, that moment that happens when that first drink tips over into the third and the forgetting begins. It's okay. It's all okay.

“Better,” Victor says, and his voice is so soft, such a comfort. “So much better. Tell me, my dear. Who is this fearsome brother of yours?”

John. Her brother, wonderful, kind, glorious John. “Johnny,” she says, and knows that she is smiling.

“A little more specific if you please.”

Of course. How stupid of her. “John Watson.”

“And you seem to be under the impression that he knows me. Why would that be?”

This is something she knows the answer to. These questions, so easy to please him and she smiles wider, knowing that this is something she can do for him. “He broke your nose,” she says. “He told me so.”

There is a silence and for a moment she thinks she's displeased him. The light smile on his face wavers and his eyes grow hard and she cringes away because this is her fault. She's done this. But it only lasts an instant before he is smiling again and he steps closer, crouching before her with his soft eyes and gentle voice. “Ah. And where is he now? With Sherlock Holmes?”

She nods, eagerly. This is so _easy._ “St James Park,” she says. “Sherlock Holmes found us.”

He smiles, so pleased, so happy with her, and she feels the warm glow of his approval suffusing every limb. “How incredibly convenient,” he says. “Come, my dear. Take my hand. We're going to pay a little visit.”

 


	39. Thirty-Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter for blood and gore and violence. (Though I think some of you will probably he delighted to hear that.)

There's something wrong with Harry, John sees it at a glance. She is vacant and docile at Victor Trevor's feet, slack and unafraid.

John is aware of Sherlock behind him, struggling to find his feet and he wishes he'd stay down, wants him to vanish, to run, to get out, and he's about to say it but he can see the moment Victor's eye fixates on the spot behind him, fixates on Sherlock, and there is nothing John can do, no motion he can make that is fast enough.

Victor barely even moves his wand as he spits out _“Expelliarmus!”_ and John hears Sherlock's grunt and the clatter of a slim wooden wand hitting the back of the bench and ricocheting off, the sound of it melding in with Victor's next spell, shouted in stentorian tones, _“Imperio!”_

John doesn't dare turn around, doesn't dare take his eyes off of Victor, but he hears the sigh, the soft moan, quiet and happy, and John knows that Sherlock is gone now and he is alone and he has no idea how he's going to save them.

“Sherlock?” he calls out, can't help himself. “Harry?”

“Oh, they're fine,” Victor says and there is amusement in his voice, his lips quirking up at the corners. “In fact, Harry and I just had such an interesting chat. Imagine, my old friend Harry Watson, sister of Sherlock Holmes's new friend. Such a little world we live in, isn't it? You never know who you'll run into next.”

“True. My fist, for example,” John says. “By the way, Vic, how's the nose?”

He sees the smirk vanish, the eyes grow hard, and John feels a shiver because they're dead, utterly dead, flat and fathomless and John realises there is nothing he won't do to keep that gaze from settling on Harry or Sherlock ever again.

“Rather more fun than your charming sister, aren't you?” Victor says and John can feel the rage burning off of him, can feel his own anger flickering upwards to respond, but he doesn't react because that's what the man's counting on, it's what he's looking for. “I think I would enjoy breaking you the hard way. Unlike your sister. The squealing and begging became so annoying after a while. I was almost relieved when she escaped. I suppose I could have always killed her, but what's the fun in that. Besides, if I'd done that, I wouldn't have gotten to do this.”

As he speaks he is pulling something from his pocket. A second wand. John knows it immediately. Harry's. And he watches the slow movement of Victor's arm as he lowers it and hands it into Harry's willing grasp.

“Harry, my dear,” he says. “Make Johnny hurt for me.”

And Harry's beatific smile is the most horrifying thing John's ever seen, even as she lowers the wand at him with a happy sigh and says _“Crucio.”_

The pain is immediate and it is utterly overwhelming. He is being torn to pieces, every cell in his body coming apart, shrieking at the strain. He can feel every individual atom as it pulls against the bindings that hold him together and he swears he is dying, that this is it, that it's not even possible to live through this agony and he tries to think of Sherlock and Harry who need him, who he can't leave alone. But he's useless, he knows he's useless. He's always been useless, to Harry, appearing on his doorstep and vanishing again the next morning, an entire history of horror behind her that he never even knew about. To his father who had never stopped drinking, right to his grave. To his mother who had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills because even when he was twelve years old he could do nothing but watch her waste away, the darkness consuming her bit by bit. James, who he couldn't manage to save though John was the only one in the world who wanted to, who could have. And now again, writhing on the ground while the world goes on around him, while everyone he is supposed to be looking after are left on their own and he does nothing, a death that isn't even useful, that won't save a solve a single thing.

And all at once it stops, the screaming, the world, his body no longer tearing itself up. He lies panting on the ground and everything hurts, his limbs trying to slot themselves back into place, his cells remembering where they belong, still clattering loosely against each other as his body tries to piece itself back together.

“Beautiful,” that voice says, that hated, hideous voice, soft and smooth and lulling. “I knew you would be delicious when you screamed. All that control. All that tension and that rigidity just ripped away.” He is close, he is so close, coming closer and John can see him, stepping towards him, dead dark eyes wide and fascinated as they fixate on him. “Look at you,” Victor says. “Trying so hard to fight it. Oh, John Watson. I will make it so you don't know how to live without me.” Victor reaches forwards, the tip of his wand inches away from John's face, the cool wooden tip sliding up from his chin to rest between his eyes. “Don't worry, my dear. I won't let you die.”

And John knows what comes next, what word is coming out of Victor's mouth even as he draws a breath to speak, but it doesn't matter because John doesn't need magic for what comes next. Every muscle screaming, every joint protesting, he ignores them and his hand whips out.

He can feel Victor's start of surprise as John clamps his fingers around his wrist, feels the grunt, cutting off words as his fingertips dig in between tendons and press.

“But you will,” John says, and twists.

Victor gives a shout as his wand falls from his hand, pain and surprise clear on his beautiful ruined face as he stumbles back. John lets him go, it doesn't matter. He snatches the wand from the grass and with a single swift motion it snaps in two between his hands.

Victor screams, the shrill sound of a heart being shattered, and he lurches forwards, arms outstretched towards John, towards the broken pieces in his hands.

He never makes it. There is a blast like fire that streaks through the air, crackling past John's shoulder and colliding in the centre of Victor's chest. His entire body lifts from the ground. He's slammed backwards, the smell of singed flesh and burning silk hot in the air.

“Don't. You. Fucking. Touch him,” says Sherlock's voice from somewhere behind him, but close, so close.

“Fuck,” says John, and his whole body gives in to the scream of his muscles dragging him back to the ground.

Sherlock is beside him in an instant, hands cool and searching, sliding along his limbs and coming to rest at his head, his fingers clutching at the sides of John's face and those eyes, wide and almost luminous staring into his.

“Alright, John?” his voice, urgent, frantic. “Are you alright?”

“Christ. No. I don't know. Shit, that hurts.”

“Cruciatus. It will for a few hours. It'll fade.”

“Jesus Christ, how is this legal?” John demands and he can feel a desperate sort of giggle rise up in his throat.

Sherlock stares at him and there is wonder in his face the start of a smile, but it never has a chance to reach his lips.

There is the sound of a shriek, high pitched and terrible, and Harry's voice, screaming out the word, _“Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!”_ over and over again and suddenly the night is being ripped apart, Victor screaming on the ground, his voice tearing out of his throat, his entire body convulsing. His fingers are clutching at the grass, the air, his robes, and Harry is standing above him with her wand pointing inexorably at his chest and her eyes ablaze while tears run down her face. _“Crucio!”_ she screams and it is a never ending loop.

John pushes himself towards her, ignoring his body, ignoring everything but the uncontrolled horror of his sister's face and he grabs her as he reaches her, his arms circling her and holding her to him, rocking her into him, his voice low in her ear, wordless and reassuring as she collapses against him. And he feels it when she gives up, when she folds inwards. Her entire body goes slack and she starts to shiver, her breath dragging through her in harsh pants. He feels her wand slip from her grasp, falling onto his shoe, lying between them as she starts to cry.

He feels a moment of panic, because there is Victor inches away, and he sees the motion from the corner of his eye, the swift snake-like movement from the ground, but then Sherlock is there and abruptly there is another scream, the crunch of fragile bone fracturing as Sherlock brings a heel down on Victor's upturned face. And then another scream and another crunch, and then another, and another. Until the screaming stops, until the sound from the splintering bone is no longer a crunch but the sound of a sponge with too much water spilling out of it.

Victor is still by the time John manages to disentangle himself from Harry and step in front of Sherlock, his body forcing a barrier. Sherlock's face is calm and still and blank as his bare foot slams down on the bloodied mess below him, utterly unrecognisable for what it was.

“Sherlock. Sherlock. Stop. Stop. Sherlock, look at me.”

It takes a long time, at least thirty seconds for that foot to stop moving, for those eyes to raise upwards from their blank scrutiny. Sherlock blinks and John can see the moment that awareness returns, that consciousness comes back. He brings his hands upwards, cradling that pale face, keeping it fixed on him.

“John,” Sherlock says, confusion in his voice, and John nods and forces himself to smile.

“Hello, love,” he says. “You can stop now.”

 


	40. Forty

Sherlock blinks and the world slowly refocuses itself into John Watson's face, badly lit by the park lights but luminous nonetheless, bright and perfect and there, right there. Close enough to touch, to be touched.

“John.”

“Hey.”

“Victor—”

“Dead. Leave it, Sherlock.”

“I want to see—”

“You don't.”

Sherlock stares at him, at eyes blue and earnest and so soft and he swallows. Nods. He realises with a suddenness that is startling that his foot is in agony.

“John. Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

“I killed him.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock stares at John a moment longer, trying to figure that out, trying to slot that information somewhere in his mind but he doesn't know where to put it, doesn't know where it belongs. He wants to delete it but something in him tells him that he wouldn't be able to and besides, this is something you remember, isn't it? Killing someone. Surely that requires remembering.

In the end he leaves it there, settled in the hallway outside the room called _Victor,_ a sign propped up against the black iron door with large bold letters: _Killed._

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock blinks. John Watson's face, hovering below his, incredibly close.

“John. My foot hurts.”

And John giggles, a slightly frantic sound but wonderful and Sherlock responds with a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“Sorry, sorry,” John says. “Just. Hold on. I need to get Harry.”

Harry. Sherlock's almost forgotten all about her. He glances up and sees her, staring downwards at the ground, only feet away, and her face is pale and blank and he follows that gaze downwards, feels it catch on the edges of something that he doesn't want to see.

“Sherlock.”

He jerks his head up and he can feel how pale he is. John has Harry in his arms, her face pressed into the crook of his neck, but he is staring at Sherlock, his voice calm, filled with authority.

“Sherlock. Look at me. Sherlock, just look at me, okay?”

He nods and blinks, focusing hard on that face, trying to pick out the beautiful maze of imperfections in the low light but it's difficult, everything's so difficult. He doesn't know what's wrong with him. He doesn't know why everything has gotten so slow.

“I'm tired,” he says, but he doesn't know if it's true.

“I know. We're going to go home. But Sherlock.” He stops, biting down on his lip, clearly afraid to ask and Sherlock forces himself to focus, forces his sluggishly rotating thoughts to clamp down and pay attention.

“Victor,” Sherlock says. “The body.”

John nods, looks unbearably guilty, though Sherlock has no idea why. “I've never—uh—”

They look at each other and utterly out of nowhere a sudden splutter of laughter abruptly explodes out of Sherlock. He has no idea where it comes from but John is giggling frantically all of a sudden and they can't even look at each other, doubled over and madly laughing. Sherlock feels the slow awareness of the world come back, the agony of his shattered foot, the cuff of his trouser leg heavy with stiffening blood. He is aware of the heavy lurch of his stomach and abruptly he is turning away, on his knees and retching into the grass, the half digested taste of cilantro, turmeric, and chicken coming back up and he knows he will never be able to eat Indian ever again.

And John is there again, a solid hand on his back, warm and unmistakably present. “I'm calling Mycroft,” he says.

“No,” Sherlock says, shaking his head weakly, tears making him blink, wetting his face, and he's so frustrated with himself because he doesn't understand why this is affecting him so much, after years of crime scenes and back alleys, why this is suddenly all too much.

“Sherlock. Please. You don't have to do this.”

“No. I can.” He pushes himself upright, stumbles. John's arms are under his, holding him up.

“Sherlock. Let me call your brother.”

“He's involved with the Ministry of Magic. He's the government liaison. We can't let him know about this.”

John swears long and low under his breath.

“Yes, those are my feelings, too,” Sherlock says. “I can do this.”

“Me too,” says Harry's voice, and Sherlock looks up to where she is shivering beside the bench, one hand clenched around the back for support. “I can help.”

“Harry, no—” John starts, his voice soft, pleading, but Sherlock interrupts before he can finish.

“Yes, alright,” he says, and he's already stepping forward, John's hands falling away from him, their warmth vanishing with a single step, when the air around them explodes, the shattering bangs of half a dozen people Apparating at once in a wide circle around them.

Harry screams and ducks and Sherlock, the spell already on his lips before the first wand has settled on any of them, shouts his own spell and the shield that snaps up around them is solid and instantaneous. The world is suddenly almost silent and Sherlock can hear John breathing, harsh and panting and angry, ready to step in front of the first spell that's fired.

“Stop! Don't fire!” a voice shouts, unquestionably commanding and loud enough that even through the muffling walls of the shielding charm they can hear it, and Sherlock knows that voice. Will never forget that voice, however much it changes with age, and he remembers it instantly, the first words he had ever heard it speak: _“Are you okay? I'm really sorry. We've called Madam Pomfrey. You'll be okay soon. I'm so sorry.”_

“Fuck,” Sherlock says, and John's eyes, narrowed and uncertain, find his.

“Is that Harry Potter?”

 


	41. Forty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before this chapter starts, i just want to say: belle_of_the_fall, my darling, my dearest. this story would not have gotten past chapter three without you. and after that it wouldn't have gotten past chapter 10. or chapter 20. or chapter 30. thank you for being my sounding board, as always. for helping me find all the loose threads i kept dropping. for showing me how they could all come together. for making me want to finish it. for making me able to finish it. so it's yours, if you'll have it. (actually it's too late, you have to have it now because i already gifted it to you hahaha sucker!)
> 
> and on that note, uuuuugghhh. i feel like this chapter's a bit of a mess. sleep is calling me, however, so....uhh....*sidles off*

John doesn't need the confirmation. He's seen that face in a hundred pictures, for years, in posters and newspapers that still came to him long after Harry had disappeared. He's seen it more recently, too, those boy's features growing up, turning into a man's. He's been on front pages attached to articles about Ministry reforms and it's this which makes John hopeful, this which makes him look at Sherlock, a question in his eyes, asking if this is okay, making sure he's not dreaming.

“Yes,” Sherlock says, and his voice sounds strange enough that John takes a step towards him, a hand held out.

It's not what he had intended, but when Sherlock reaches out and grasps it, his fingers wrapping themselves tightly between John's, John doesn't pull away, but tightens his own hold, promising that support, whatever it means.

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock's voice is quiet, hoarse. “The second years who found me. In the toilets. After Victor. Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley.”

And before John can react, before he can do more than widen his eyes and tighten his fingers, Sherlock flicks a negligent finger and the shield vanishes from around them.

Even with the muffling presence of the spell gone, the night is eerily quiet. There are six wands pointed at them and John knows the owner of at least two of them. Harry Potter, his dark hair falling in wild strands around his face, his eyes burning behind his glasses and that unmistakable scar a faded, gleaming white against his forehead. And at his side, a blazon of red hair above that infamous, mulish face, Ron Weasley.

“Jesus Christ.”

There is a brief moment when no one moves, when they are all standing there simply staring at each other and John isn't sure where this is going. But then, without speaking, Harry Potter lowers his wand and as one, the others do the same.

“Sherlock Holmes and Harriet Watson?” Harry Potter asks.

Neither of them speak and so it's John who nods, taking a small step forward, an imperceptible movement that leaves him standing in front of Sherlock and Harry, kneeling on the ground at his side.

“Who's asking?”

“Auror Potter. I'm leading this squad.”

“Captain John H. Watson,” John returns. “What do you want?”

There is a moment of uncertain silence before the sound of a disbelieving snort emerges from Potter's right side and Ron Weasley gestures to the unrecognisable body of Victor Trevor on the ground.

“Mate. You serious?” he asks, and John has to admit he has a point.

There is the briefest quirk on Potter's lips and John nods.

“Yeah, okay.”

The quirk turns into an outright grin, hastily wiped away.

“Are we taking them in, Potter?” says a witch, standing behind Sherlock.

The glance Potter shoots her is annoyed and he ignores the question, sheathing his wand and stepping towards the body on the ground. He makes a face as he bends over and peers closely.

“This wasn't done by magic,” he says, and John sees the sideways glance he casts over to them, the raising of his eyebrows as he sees Sherlock's foot, mangled and covered in blood, deep bruises already forming.

“No,” John says. “It wasn't.”

“Captain John H. Watson,” Potter says, straightening. He turns and faces them, his eyes questioning, but there is nothing of antagonism in his face, only curiosity. “As in Harriet Watson's brother?”

“Correct.”

“Hm. A Muggle?”

John nods. He's getting annoyed. He wants to know what this is. It's not an arrest. It's certainly not an attack. He sends a pointed gaze around the circle of six wizards and witches and raises an eyebrow at Potter.

“We were planning on cleaning up after ourselves, if that's your concern.”

Too flippant. Potter frowns.

“A wizard is dead.”

“The man who tortured and raped my sister and my friend is dead. Or is that not punishable by wizard law? The Ministry protects its own, yeah?”

The frown on the scarred face before him, still so young, turns downwards into a scowl. “Not anymore.”

“Could have fooled me. It took us defending ourselves for you to actually show up.”

“We were watching him.”

“Well, you were doing a shitty job of it.”

Potter gives a huff of frustration and John gets the impression that this is an argument he's had multiple times. “We're attempting reform. Actual laws. Evidence. Trials. Juries. Too many wizards and witches have been punished and imprisoned for things they weren't responsible for, especially after the war. And too many have gone free. Surely you can appreciate that, Captain Watson.”

“I appreciate not being tortured more.”

And in spite of the tension in John's voice, he sees the twist of sympathy in Potter's face, the complete change from frustration to understanding, and he nods. “I know,” the wizard says. “I'm sorry. We had him pinned in Baker Street but he managed to slip away.”

“And when your Ministry took my sister and told her she wasn't a witch and then took her again because of the information you tortured out of her the first time?”

This isn't fair, John knows it's not. Harry Potter couldn't have helped any of those things, but he's angry, he's angry that it has taken seventeen years and God only knows how many victims for these people to understand, to see. That for perhaps fifteen years Victor Trevor has been in a position of power over others with not a single witch or wizard among them seeing what he was. And John knows how that happens, every single day, in the Muggle world, too, but he is too angry to care, the horror on his sister's face to this day, the seventeen years it had taken for Sherlock to finally tell someone what had happened to him, both these things far too fresh in John's mind. His body still hurts from the curse levelled at him. The rest of him hurts from everything else.

“I—There's nothing I can say,” Potter says. “I'm trying to change things. I'm trying to make them better.”

“Then until you do, we'll just keep protecting ourselves, thanks.”

“For Heaven's sake, Doctor Watson,” says a familiar voice behind him, and he spins around even as he hears the groan from Sherlock behind him. “You needn't be so dramatic.”

Mycroft Holmes, in a full suit and an umbrella swinging at his side, is slightly breathless as he comes to a stop among the circle of figures. John isn't even remotely glad to see him. At his side, hair tied back into a tight knot at the back of her head, slim figure encased in an ordinary suit, is a woman that John immediately recognises. The third face of the trio, Hermione Granger, and he hears Sherlock groan even louder.

“Doctor John Watson?” the witch says, stepping forward with a hand held out. “Herminone Granger. Department of Muggle Affairs.”

John takes it in the one that isn't latched on to Sherlock's. “Hello. I know who you are.”

He sees the blush on her face, mingled with mild exasperation. “Everyone always does.”

“What's going on?” he askss, hoping that she will answer his questions, since no one else will.

“Oh, yes, sorry about the delay. Harry and the others were asked to wait for Mr Holmes and myself, seeing as how a Muggle was involved.”

“John.”

“Sorry?”

“My name. It's John. Not _Muggle.”_

That blush again, faint but there, even as her face maintains her diplomatic calm. “Yes, of course. I apologise, John. Harry,” she says to the wizard at John's back. “Do what you need to do.”

“Can I ask what that is?” John says and he's speaking through his teeth. He's getting tired of these people, this world. He wants to go to bed, to his enormous attic room in Baker Street with a cat purring at his head. Never mind that that cat is currently standing at his back, six feet tall and gripping his hand like a lifeline.

“Really, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft says. “No need to get snippy. They're removing the body. And naturally there are the arrangements for your sister.”

Every hackle rises and John can feel the warning printed on his face. He lets go of Sherlock's hand and takes a threatening step towards the people who surround them. On the ground on her knees, two feet away, Harry gives a whimper and leans towards him.

The glance Hermione throws at Mycroft has enough annoyance in it that John almost likes her.

“What Mr Holmes is trying to say,” she says to John hastily, “Is that we want to help her. There is a programme set up at St Mungo's meant to support the victims of such people as Victor Trevor. It was established shortly after the war by Hannah Abbot, and it uses a mixture of magical remedies as well as several methods established in Muggle hospitals, including certain schools of pyschotherapy.” She hesitates, and with a questioning glance at John she sinks down to her knees, where Harry is still huddled, exhausted and wide-eyed, the fear still there, overlaid now with shock.

John wants to push Hermione away, wants to stand between them, his sister and this world that's managed to destroy her, but he recognises the kindness in Hermione's eyes, the desire to do _something,_ so he kneels down with her, beside his sister, who takes his hand and looks at him and he sees the question in her eyes and he wishes he could answer it for her.

“Harry,” Hermione says. “Please let us help you. You've been hiding from us for so long and I know you're scared. I don't blame you. But we can try to help now, if you'll let us. If you'll trust us.”

And John wants to trust this. Wants to believe this. For his sister but also for himself if he's honest. Because he's missed her, he's missed his sister, Harry who taught him how to wield a wand, Harry who used to tell him everything. But this isn't his decision to make and he returns Harry's look, trying to keep his face neutral but wanting her to understand in the pressure of his hand that he isn't leaving her.

“Yeah,” she says finally, still looking at John. “Alright. But I want John to come. At least to see. To know where I am.”

And he smiles, relief rising up in him and he nods, a single firm movement of his head. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course. Always.”

 


	42. Forty-Two

The sudden cold on his hand when John Watson lets him go is almost shocking and Sherlock, watching as he sinks to his knees beside his sister, feels an odd possessiveness that he wants to call jealousy if the idea weren't so absurd. He flexes his hand, feeling the night air drying the nervous sweat from between his fingers, and he starts to shiver. He doesn't know when it got so cold.

At his feet, Hermione Granger talks to Harry and John Watson about psychotherapy and it's one of the most surreal experiences of Sherlock Holmes's life.

“Mr Holmes?”

He looks up, frowning. That perfectly-remembered face is staring into his, the scar faded from its livid red but still there, a smooth white imperfection across that infamous forehead.

“Sherlock,” Sherlock says. _Mr Holmes_ will always be Mycroft in his head and the very idea makes him shudder.

Harry Potter nods. “Sherlock, then.”

Behind him, Ronald Weasley is sidling nearer, a cautious look on those stubborn features. They both look so young still. Just children. Though Sherlock knows how false that is, in age and in experience. He hadn't gotten involved in the war, but he saw its edges, felt the tsunami of its impact rolling over them all, almost drowning them. But Sherlock is tired and the world is still shaking enough at its edges that all he wants is to be left alone.

“What do you want?” he sighs.

He sees the glance cast between Potter and Weasley then, the wary uncertainty. It is fleeting, easily missed, but Sherlock sees it and he feels an odd pang, his hand reaching instinctively downwards to clutch at John. He's out of reach, leaning into his sister, an arm around her shaking shoulders. Hermione Granger is holding Harry's hands and looking earnest and Mycroft is watching them all, a slightly impatient look on his patrician face.

Surprisingly, it's Weasley who speaks first, his face carefully neutral, his eyes flickering nervously away. “Listen. Just so you know. We—” another glance between the two Aurors. Potter looks awkwardly away. “We never told anyone,” Weasley finishes. “When we were second year. Well. Madam Pomfrey, obviously. But we had to do that.”

Sherlock stares at him, no idea what he's supposed to say. Is he meant to be grateful? Angry? Accusing? He doesn't know. He doesn't feel anything.

“We mean,” Potter says carefully, “Nobody knows. Which is okay, if that's what you need. But. If not. If you want to talk to anyone. The programme that we've built up at St Mungo's, it's for that, too. For you, I mean. If you need it. Not just for war victims. For everyone.”

Sherlock looks at them, their earnest eyes barely meeting his. These children who aren't all that much younger than him.

“I—”

“You don't have to say anything,” Potter says quickly, stepping in front of that reluctant syllable.

Beside him, Weasley shakes his red head. “We just wanted you to know.”

“That it's there,” Potter nods. “If you want it.”

Sherlock keeps staring. His brain seems stuck, his body frozen. His foot is in agony and he doesn't know who to tell because John is ignoring him, talking quietly to Hermione on the grass while Harry Watson listens at his side.

“Are we done here?” he says, and at those words, tiredly spoken, John finally looks up, concern on his features as he pushes himself to his feet. Without even asking he reaches over and takes Sherlock's hand in his once more.

Like that, the shaking edges of the world seem to steady.

“We're going to St Mungo's,” John says, and he says it to Sherlock but he's also directing the words to Potter and Weasley, watching them slowly collect themselves.

“John—” Sherlock begins, because he doesn't know what this means. Is John trying to get rid of him? Tell him he needs help? Sherlock doesn't know how he feels but he does know he wants to go home, crawl into bed with something warm against him, the knowledge that John is nearby, that John wants him, that this is over and that the spectre of Victor is something he will never have to deal with again. Not like that, anyway.

But John squeezes his hand, silencing him with a soft look. “Your foot,” he says. “And I want to go with Harry.”

Harry. His foot. Obviously.

Around them, the four remaining Aurors are crouched around Victor's body. There are notebooks in their hands and they are peering around at the grass, taking photographs of the scene, incanting spells over the area, inspecting the wands. One of them, a blonde, square-jawed witch with a fierce expression, walks over to where they are huddled. She is holding Sherlock's wand in her hand as well as her own and she holds it out to him.

“No prior spells,” she says. “Not even a shield charm.”

She says it pointedly, giving him a hard look, and Sherlock just shrugs.

Again that look between Weasley and Potter. “Would you mind taking to us tomorrow?” Harry Potter asks.

Sherlock says nothing, watching the unreal sight that is witches and wizards attempting to gather evidence.

“Yes,” John says for them both. “Fine. But later. Much later. And I want to be there when you talk to Harry.”

“Yeah, okay,” Weasley says. “That's alright. Tomorrow afternoon? We'll come get you.”

John nods and after an awkward pause in which no one is sure what to say, Potter and Weasley finally move away.

The moment they're out of hearing, John shifts closer, his body pressed fully against Sherlock's and he looks up, his eyes blue in the light of the spells being cast ten feet away.

“Alright?” he asks, and his face is lined with his concern, his voice soft with something more.

And Sherlock's not. He doesn't think he is, anyway. It's hard to tell right now with his mangled foot clamouring for his attention and his brain refusing to work. But looking down at that face, its imperfections, its beauty, Sherlock can only nod. “Will be,” he says, and he thinks it's true.

 


	43. Forty-Three

Hermione stays with them throughout their tour of the new Mental Wellness Ward. She walks them through it all, showing them the private wards, the counselling rooms for private sessions, and the wider, brighter places for group sessions where tables and chairs scatter the room, waiting for order. She shows them the refectory, almost deserted at this time of night, and, surprisingly, a tiny chapel, newly formed with high windows overlooking what looks like the Thames but that John knows can't possibly be. She shows them the patient lounge, made out in quiet colours with deep sofas and cushioned chairs with a wall lined in books. She shows them a courtyard garden that she admits is no more than a year old, but even at this time of night has several people wandering the shadowed circular path and seated on the scattered benches.

The entire time, Sherlock's hand is firmly clasped around John's. John feels the dampness of his palm, the convulsive tightening of its grip when they reach the private wards once more and Hermione stops in front of a door and smiles at Harry. “This one's yours,” she says.

It is a good-sized space, warmly lit with a comfortable looking bed and a dark wood wardrobe and chest of drawers that match the spindled bed frame. The windows looks out over Hyde Park, another impossibility. Harry goes in, past the point of caring, and first sits then tips over and curls up on her side on the bed.

John stays with her, till her shivering stops, till her eyes close, till the shallow breaths deepen and she sleeps. He talks to her the whole time, and when he runs out of words, he sings.

It is the only time since leaving the scene in Regent's Park that Sherlock has strayed outside of touching distance, giving John this, giving Harry this. But he lingers in the doorway the whole time while Harry falls asleep, hovering nervously as Hermione talks about the available amenities in an undervoice.

John watches out of the corner of his eye, the way Sherlock's wide gaze remains fixed on him, kneeling at his sister's bed, refusing to look up to acknowledge the witch speaking at his side, offering no answer till she takes the point and falls silent.

John writes a note before leaving, propping it up on the small table beside the bed, right next to the lamp: Harry's name written in bold scrawling letters and with nothing but the words

 

_I'll be back tomorrow. Love you._

 

scribbled in his doctors hand. Then rising, he goes to Sherlock, who attaches himself to his hand with swift determination and looks at him with such meaning that John can only nod and look at once to Hermione Granger. “We're going home now,” he tells her.

There is a Ministry car to take them back to Baker Street. Sherlock's foot is bare still but now at least healed, the bruises gone and the shattered bone put back together.

John is watching London pass, the desertion of its streets telling its tale of four-thirty in the morning, that peculiar time before the day city wakes and after the night city has mostly gone to sleep. John revels in the strangeness of it all, the almost alien feel to this familiar landscape. Sherlock is shivering gently at his side and John wants to hold him, pull him down towards him and circle him with reassuring arms. But Sherlock is stiff and upright and unbending and John lets him be, feeling those damp fingers clutching his instead, offering a squeeze now and then just to remind him that he's not alone.

Baker Street is deserted, and the flat when they reach it has been completely cleaned of all evidence of Victor's visit. Even the leftover Indian food has been vanished, the dishes cleaned and back in their cupboards. The broken chair has been mended, not a splinter out of place.

John leads Sherlock straight to the bathroom where he lets go of his hand only to put the plug in the tub and turn on the taps. He makes the water slightly warmer than comfortable, and when it's half-filled he leaves Sherlock to undress and get in. He shuts the door behind him, cutting off the sound of running water and silence, and goes straight to the kitchen where he pours out two small glasses of whiskey, one of the few indulgences he has let himself have after Afghanistan.

He drinks his, sitting in the red chair by the fireplace, staring straight ahead, unable to work up the energy to pick up the book at his side. He hears the taps cut off in the bathroom. The sloshing of water against the porcelain basin. Then silence as Sherlock settles himself, only to have it broken a moment later by the sound of his name being called in hesitant tones.

John gets up, taking both glasses with him, and slips into the bathroom. Sherlock is huddled in the centre of the tub, his long pale body curled up around itself. Without a word, John kneels beside the tub and hands him the full glass.

“Drink,” he instructs.

Sherlock does. “It's disgusting.”

John doesn't say anything and Sherlock drinks anyway, sipping the spirit down bit by bit, and slowly he begins to unfurl, that white body gradually stretching itself out.

John washes him, starting with his hair, his neck, sliding down his shoulders and running his soapy hands over a lean pale chest. He makes a point of avoiding Sherlock's groin, but the detective, fully laid out in the too-short tub now, opens a sapient eye and there is a world of mockery in it. John stifles his wider grin but lets his hands fall lower until Sherlock is sighing and John is confused, unsure if this is his patient or his would-be lover. Either way, he lets Sherlock sigh until the sighs turn into something more, at which point John moves on, offering a mischievous smile at the accusing glare that is cast at him. He washes down those long, long legs, almost never ending, and he thoroughly cleans his feet, the right one pinker than the left with the smoothness of new skin.

Sherlock is completely pliant by the end and John makes him rise, pulling the drain on the tub and dragging off his own clothes before he turns the taps back on and waits for it to warm before turning on the shower head.

He washes quickly while Sherlock stands in the spray, letting it rain down around his face, his eyes closed against it. When they are both clean, John shuts it off and he towels Sherlock dry with careful strokes before using the same towel on himself.

They are both naked when John leads Sherlock to his bed, settling that long, lanky body among the blankets. He's not sure what comes next, not sure what happens now, but when he turns to go a white hand reaches out and pulls him back.

“What are you doing?” Sherlock says.

“You need to sleep.”

“I will,” and he pulls harder and John lets him drag him down.

It is so natural, to end that motion on a kiss. John lets himself be pulled into it, feeling those arms, still warm and damp from the bath, slip around him and stay. They are on their sides, facing each other, the search for lips a slow and steady hunt, the hint of a tongue that is lacking in the urgency from before.

Their legs slide together, feet pressing at calves and leaving trails of warmth. Their skin is sticking to each other where they haven't quite dried yet and Sherlock's hair, in wet tendrils on his scalp, slides between John's fingers and turns the air humid when he breathes it in.

He smells like soap and water and whiskey and John inhales him. He tastes the spirit still on the tongue that is quietly seeking his and he presses it against his own, finding the flavour underneath.

They're moving together now, a single undulating motion. There is no room between them, the space decimated by the convergence of warm flesh. For the first time since getting shot, John is not ashamed by his body, by its paleness, the wasted sickness of his muscle, the scars only half-healed. He doesn't even think of it, this self that wasn't good enough for such a long time. His entire focus is on the body against his, on the perfections and imperfections, on the scars he hasn't yet learnt but will.

Sherlock is sighing, small high sounds that settle between John's lips and stay there. He returns them with his own, with almost silent groans of want. The pressure between them is building. He is fully hard and Sherlock, pushing frantically against him, is the same.

And it's almost enough, to stay like this for what remains of the night, till morning breaks in on them, illuminating them and making it real. It is almost enough to kiss like this and want. John could do this forever. He wants to. But they both need to sleep. They both need other things as well.

He pulls away from that heat, making a furnace between them, and Sherlock whimpers, a lost sound that John tastes with his tongue and laps away. He reaches an arm in this new space, before Sherlock can close the gap again, and wraps a hand around both their erections.

Sherlock gasps and for a moment John loses those lips as that mouth opens wide, those eyes becoming huge with sudden wonder. But only for a moment before Sherlock is back, kissing frantically as John pumps his hand up and down, those bony hips stuttering into his own. It barely takes any time at all.

With the bitten off sound of John's name cried out on the verge of a sob, Sherlock comes, and right after him John is groaning out his own orgasm. Overwhelming need evaporates in that single instant to be replaced with something else, something just as potent, just as powerful, and Sherlock, pliant and soft and warm, buries his face deep in the crook of John's neck and begins to sob.

 


	44. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my darlings. my dears. thank you so much.

*****FIVE MONTHS LATER*****

 

On a cold, bright November day, Harry arranges to meet them at The Leaky Cauldron. She comes on her own, walking the distance by herself from St Mungo's.

It is her first time wandering these streets on her own in years, the first time she does not Apparate, the first time she carefully schedules a meeting place and with deliberation, arrives ten minutes early. John, in an attempt at compromise, had suggested Floo powder, but Harry had been determined, needing to prove herself. That there was a line between running and hiding and that she had found it.

She is still pale, but the bruises have faded from around her eyes, and the lines, though a carved and permanent part of her features, have softened enough that for the first time in years she looks closer to her true years, not quite forty. And when she sees them, John striding confidently towards her, the smile that lights her face is unrestrained.

They meet on the doorstep, the pub so easily missed until you're looking for it. They don't embrace. They only saw each other yesterday and it's enough, this conspiratorial grin they share, a private matter between siblings.

She greets Sherlock properly, though, a finger rubbing at the offered chin. He stretches his long body out to her from where he's wrapped around John's neck, long tail curled into a spiral against his throat.

“Hello, there,” she says. “Haven't seen you for ages.”

Sherlock gives a rumbling purr that John feels all the way down his spine and he smiles, leaning his cheek into the soft fur and a small black head nuzzles back.

“Ready?” he asks, directing the comment to both of them, and Harry nods with a determined smile and Sherlock gives a wide, eloquent yawn.

They enter the pub, John in front. The bell gives a hollow clang and he steps into the dim interior, grey wooden tables only half filled. The barman, a wizard several years younger than John with a straight brow and a crooked nose and a long, good-looking face, gives them a nod before turning back to his taps.

They don't stop, John leading the way by vague, half-formed memory into the courtyard out back. Harry is close to him and he can feel the tension radiating off of her from here. Around his neck, Sherlock is limp and relaxed, utterly at ease. He is licking fastidiously at a paw. The only evidence that he is paying attention is the flickering of a soft ear that John feels tickling at his jaw.

John remembers this tiny courtyard, though it's been twenty-one years ago since he's been here, since Harry's seventh year at Hogwarts. It had been a crowded space then, heaped with broken chairs and half-filled bins, with blackened leaves and half-rotted food piled in the corners. Now it's clean, the paved ground swept, and a small herb garden in a box growing along one side.

He stops in front of the blank wall directly across from the doorway. The day is cold but bright and he squints at the courtyard wall, the sun creating shadows where the bricks have been worn by generations of wizards tapping at them.

“Who's doing the honours?” he asks. Sherlock gives a negligent flick of his tail and looks away, so it's Harry who steps forward, the tip of her wand making a hollow sound against the shadowed brick.

And like magic, the wall falls away, and John leads them into Diagon Alley.

In spite of the cold, it is crowded, and John, who hasn't seen this place for over twenty years, is struck by both the differences and the similarities. The street itself is almost identical. There are only a few shops that he has any particular remembrance of, but the feel of it on this late autumn afternoon is oddly free, and among the wizards and witches, and even alongside them, he is aware of a large number of Goblins and House Elves, mingling easily with their taller counterparts. Several of the Goblins have wands, stubby things tucked into belts, but instantly recognisable for what they are, and nearly every House Elf is wearing some item of clothing. He knows what this means, has devoured every wizarding paper he's ever gotten his hands on, front page to last, even after Harry had stopped coming by, even after she had vanished. Those papers had kept coming and John had never stopped reading, eager to learn of the things that could be keeping his sister away.

He didn't know then, of course, but he knows now. He knows a great deal now, and he finds his gaze lingering on her, walking a few steps ahead, the tension still stiff in her neck and shoulders but easing somewhat, and a wide wonder in her eyes as she remembers and looks once more on the world she had hidden from for so many years.

Around his neck, Sherlock has fallen silent and John knows that even in cat form he is trying his hardest to look uninterested. It isn't working of course. The tip of his tail flickers incessantly against John's throat and he has stopped purring. His ears are twitching non-stop and John, glancing out of the corner of his eyes, sees those wide round eyes trying not to stare, trying not to absorb every altered detail. That rough pink tongue is half suspended against a soft black paw.

John stifles his grin, looking away, back to the shops lining the narrow street. He sees  _ Ollivander's Wand Shop, Eeylops Owl Emporium, Finnigan's Ice Cream Parlour, Scribbulus Writing Instruments, Romilda's Robes, Quality Quidditch Supplies, Gramalkin's Goblin Goods, _ and there, on the left, between a print shop and a dingy looking pub, utterly unchanged, is  _ Magical Menagerie. _

Harry has stopped, is staring at the cages hung out in front of the shop, with miserable looking toads and huddled, terrified rats. She is frowning and when John comes up behind her she glances back at him, not quite meeting his eye.

“It's just the same.”

John nods somewhat grimly. “Not everything changes.”

Her frown deepens and she says nothing.

Behind them, two House Elves skip past giggling in high pitched voices, clutching bags marked  _ Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. _

“I'd like a to get a rat,” she says. “But not here.”

John settles a hand on her arm. “Yeah. Here. They look like they could use a new home. And when we get back we'll talk to someone. Hermione would care, I think. And if she doesn't, I'll make her.”

Harry grimaces. “I wish—” she stops, hesitates. John says nothing, waiting for her to finish. On his shoulder, Sherlock has given up pretending to groom himself and is circled almost fully around John's neck, his soft head bumping under John's chin,

“I could do this,” she says finally. “Right? I could do something like this.”

“Better,” John tells her. “You could do this so much better.”

She nods, her lined face determined, the grey in her hair highlighted by the brightness of the sun. “Yeah,” she says finally. “Alright,” and leads the way into the shop.

Inside, it is as dark and depressing as John remembers. He winds his way through the silent, shivering animals, crouched in their tiny cages, while Harry goes straight to the counter at the back. He can hear her ask for a rat, the oldest, most miserable one the wizard has and he starts to argue with her, trying to convince her to buy something young, something expensive. But Harry is ready, and John can hear her voice floating among the cages, sharp with accusation as she lectures the startled and scowling wizard.

John lets her do it, wandering among the cages, trying his best not to look too closely, not yet. He'll change this. He will. If he has to convince Sherlock to give up Baker Street and buy this place instead. They would make it work. John could get a full time position at a clinic, work night shifts at an A and E. How much could this dirty, dingy place cost, anyway?

He hears it before he sees it, a low rumbling growl, and he follows the sound to a tiny cage set in the far corner on the floor. He crouches down. On his shoulders, Sherlock digs his claws in to maintain his balance.

The cat in the cage is large and shaggy, its long stripped fur tangled and matted. It is thin. Even under the matts John can see that, the hollowness of its face, the jutting of its spine. It is furious but its growls hold an element of exhaustion that John doesn't miss.

“Hello, love,” John says quietly. 

The cat in the cage and the cat on his shoulder both lay their ears back and hiss.

John brings a hand up to Sherlock, whose ears are now pressed flat against his head.

“Don't be ridiculous,” John scoffs. “Jealous of a cat.”

Sherlock squawks indignantly, but his ears flicker upwards again.

Together they stare at the enraged animal before them. It is pressed into the far corner, its eyes wide and furious. Its tail is lashing violently against the bars.

“Well,” John says. “We do have all that tinned food still. And the scratching post. Not to mention the collar.”

In the end, it takes less than a minute to decide. John stands up, a smile on his face as he carefully picks up the cage and makes his way through the maze of the shop towards where Harry is still shouting at the owner. 

Around his neck, Sherlock is making indignant huffing sounds, but John hushes him softly, a smile on his face as he turns his head to the side and places a kiss in those familiar black curls.

“Hush,” John says. “It'll be fun. And just think, we could even name him Billy.”

 


End file.
